You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.
Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been
Try this: head south on Mississippi 49, one-
by-one mile markers ticking off
another minute of your life. Follow this
to its natural conclusion – dead end
at the coast, the pier at Gulfport where
riggings of shrimp boats are loose stitches
in a sky threatening rain. Cross over
the man-made beach, 26 miles of sand
dumped on a mangrove swamp – buried
terrain of the past. Bring only
what you must carry – tome of memory
its random blank pages. On the dock
where you board the boat for Ship Island,
someone will take your picture:
the photograph – who you were -
will be waiting when you return
at the end of day, at the end of vacation,
at the end of this life you’re given
to walk straight through, to give away.
Try to remember, when you’re old
and you’ve forgotten nearly everything,
even this: you woke
each morning to the sound
of cannon fire. When you slept
dreams of hurricanes came,
of a man wearing two watches
one for the time he’s got
one for the time he’s lost.
Wake to find the Gulf
has claimed another meter of shoreline.
What remains: a burned-out moon
above the waterline, a few mangled fish
brought in by the tide, a jellyfish
or two, whose pulse still beats,
collapsed beside the plastic
six-pack rings and discarded nets, aging
pieces of the human garbage
washing up on the shore. You feel
yourself aging too – everyone does –
even the jellyfish, even the fish.