Seaweed

Our daughter is one and a half

You have been dead eleven days

I got on the boat and came to the place

Where the three of us

We're going to build our house

If you had lived

You died though

So I came here alone with our baby

And the dust of your bones

I can't remember

Were you into Canada geese

Is it significant

These hundreds on the beach

Or were they just hungry

For mid-migration seaweed

What about foxgloves

Is that a flower you liked

I can't remember

You did most of

My remembering for me

And now I stand untethered

In a field full of wild foxgloves

Wondering if you're there

Or if a flower means anything

And what could anything mean

In this crushing absurdity

I brought a chair from home

I'm leaving it on the hill

Facing west and north

And I poured out your ashes on it

I guess so you can watch the sunset

But the truth is I don't

Think of that dust as you

You are the sunset