Low Tide

the tide’s gone out,
has left the beach;
the tide has run
back out to sea. 
like sand that slips
through weathered sieves,
the tide’s gone out;
the shoreline grieves.

  without that veil of salty brine,
the ocean is laid bare -
the splintered rocks, the beaten stones,
are exposed to frigid air. 
all the nooks and crannies,
every raw and aching cavity, 
all the places where the water was
revealed like skeletal anatomy. 
a magician sweeping off a cloth,
or the climax of a story;
the shroud of crashing, breaking waves,
no longer hides this gory glory. 
stranded stars and shattered shells
commune with gasping slips of silver -
truth bought for a prickling price, 
partly sweet, but mostly bitter. 
there’s an innate sense of wrongness,
to this surreal, foreign scene -
the water’s gone, when water should
be the keeper of this ocean green. 
the inner workings of the tide,
the way it hollows out the rock,
all the places that the water touched, 
the crags where Triton came to knock -

 it’s transparent, understandable,
in a way it couldn’t be before,
when the water stood protector,
of this barren, empty shore.