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Everything From That Point On by Rhett Iseman Trull
I.
All day the gulls dove, cries unsynchronized, throats clinching every note as tightly as their bills
pincered quivering fish. The morning wind, spiked with salt, stung our eyes as the sun slashed its light
across the numb horizon. I guess this is mine now, you said, by default, drumming your chewed fingernails
with a hollow ruc-a-tuc, ruc-a-tuc on the bumper of your father's truck, our reflection skewed in its dents.
And everything from that point on was slow motion: the rest of the day spreading between us without words,
sunbathers coming and going, building their castles until the tide slithered in to crush the towers in its grip.
Then the cooler air, clouds wisping thin, the last of the fishermen reeling in, and the loon on one leg
letting the pink wings of sunset molest her feather by feather.
II.
Alone, under the cold fist of the moon and backed by hazy winks of distant hotel lights, you slogged in calf-deep, the waves
gutting the ocean floor, sloshing its dregs against you. From the shore I memorized
each splintered shell, each man-of-war, each muscle you didn't flinch. Without ceremony, you slung the urn
out past the breakers, its lid tipping, dark tail of ashes trailing. As you returned, the chill of the night
trembling through you, the smell of the brine in your hair, I knew this would be the end for us. Your green eyes were pale,
scaled of their usual laughter. You swung from your loss, gills straining. I loved you most in that moment, knowing
even as I slipped my arm up the back of your shirt, hooking us together, that you were about to cut me loose to spare me
the tightening of the line, the bruise of sudden air.
The Cry R.S.Thomas
Don't think it was all hate that grew there; love grew there, too, climbing by small tendrils where The warmth fell from the eyes' blue
flame. Don't even think the dirt and the brute ugliness reigned unchallenged. Among the fields sometimes the spirit, enchained
so long by the gross flesh, raised suddenly there its wild notes of praise.
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