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Third
Place Winner: Connie Post
Funeral of the Sea Lion
Half mile from the old pier,
the sea lion came to die alone
traveled to a waiting shoreline
where detached kelp and broken crab shells
had no intention of encumbering mortality
it had no way of knowing onlookers would encroach
drop sand dollars and good intentions
upon anthropomorphic waves
no way of knowing
that we hate death, pull it out of our toes
like the seaweed that finds us on low tide nights
I stood far back
watching the cyclic rush of children, dogs, parents
crowd and recede, try and then fall back
not knowing it was over, the way I did
not hearing the animal’s cry for solitude
not one other person could see
the fallible dusk - the bloodshot sky
not one
I waited behind one solid, jagged rock
to witness the final elegy of sand
to know the conscious grains had settled
to the bottoms of my feet
to feel irretrievability find its way,
backwards - inside my skin
when the fog poured its language upon the shore
the struggle finally ceased
the ocean made its burial song
finally pulling the creature back inside a forgiving under toe
the people moved back
stumbling over themselves like dark pockets of night
I stayed, watched the pier fall away
as loose pieces of driftwood and meaning
fell in and out of cadence with a body of water
inexorable and undefined
Back to Oct 2008
Winners
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