Pat Hanahoe-Dosch

The tide’s detritus, its cast-offs, the wrack line.

What the water and sand can’t hide, bury, or shape,

some creature will eat. What is left, the ocean

swallows, later: my footprints, yours,

sea-glass, shell fragments, bones and last wishes.

Wrack and ruin. Digestion,

the waves’ great purpose.

                                 from "What the Tide Brings" by Pat Hanahoe-Dosch