Brendan Galvin

There is no radical shift of light or redwings calling areas of marsh their territories yet, nor plovers probing for copepods. Only a yellow front-end loader laying out a new berm on the beach, from tubes too heavy to be called hoses, its audience one man and his protesting dog. No frosted wedding cake on tour, no Cap’n Beauregard hailing us from the Texas deck, no Texas deck, just an unshaven crew launching zodiacs from the county dredge, its twin stacks staining itself and the air with smoke, as battered an emblem of hope as any other. So spring comes to Egg Island, squealing and unwilling. Sulfur and diesel, flywheel, gear and grind until one morning the equinox dawns and silences the whole shebang.