Vultures clean the coast,
          what we couldn’t sing underwater,

we brought back in the throat
          of our afternoon. The shore shaped

by the constant carol of waves,
          like a mammal’s heart. Beached,

the baby Great White, a belly

          gray as a singing knife,

kisses each of her hissing fins
          to the sand. Recovering some altitude,

flashing her wings of cheek. Worn out

          eyes gelled with kindness.

Hurt as a cavity, stalactites
          of her teeth, some still moonset,

let out their dark light:
          I’ve done enough, it is over.

Cupping my hands
          in the geometry of a prayer,

a bedouin by by a desert spring,

          holding all of the ocean I can

to wet her breath as you find
          a bucket abandoned by a fallen castle.

You get behind and carve the sand, too.

          The back fin fanning, your feet

coiled with the same energy
          as a birth. The waves open

and the mossy slip of her tucks
          bravely into your arms, the only way

I know you know how to hold.

          Fins start to coast into

swim and she bursts into
          a glide: so common and sweet as air.