Kalaloch

The bleached wood massed in bone piles, we pulled it from dark beach and built fire in a fenced clearing. The posts’ blunt stubs sank down, they circled and were roofed by milled lumber dragged at one time to the coast. We slept there. Each morning the minus tide— weeds flowed it like hair swimming. The starfish gripped rock, pastel, rough. Fish bones lay in sun. Each noon the milk fog sank from cloud cover, came in our clothes and held them tighter on us. Sea stacks stood and disappeared. They came back when the sun scrubbed out the inlet. We went down to piles to get mussels, I made my shirt a bowl of mussel stones, carted them to our grate where they smoked apart. I pulled the mussel lip bodies out, chewed their squeak. We went up the path for fresh water, berries. Hardly speaking, thinking. During low tide we crossed to the island, climbed its wet summit. The redfoots and pelicans dropped for fish. Oclets so silent fell toward water with linked feet. Jacynthe said little. Long since we had spoken Nova Scotia, Michigan, and knew beauty in saying nothing. She told me about her mother who would come at them with bread knives then stop herself, her face emptied. I told her about me, never lied. At night at times the moon floated. We sat with arms tight watching flames spit, snap. On stone and sand picking up wood shaped like a body, like a gull. I ran barefoot not only on beach but harsh gravels up through the woods. I shit easy, covered my dropping. Some nights, no fires, we watched sea pucker and get stabbed by the beacon circling on Tatoosh. 2 I stripped and spread on the sea lip, stretched to the slap of the foam and the vast red dulce. Jacynthe gripped the earth in her fists, opened— the boil of the tide shuffled into her. The beach revolved, headlands behind us put their pines in the sun. Gulls turned a strong sky. Their pained wings held, they bit water quick, lifted. Their looping eyes continually measure the distance from us, bare women who do not touch. Rocks drowsed, holes filled with suds from a distance. A deep laugh bounced in my flesh and sprayed her. 3 Flies crawled us, Jacynthe crawled. With her palms she spread my calves, she moved my heels from each other. A woman’s mouth is not different, sand moved wild beneath me, her long hair wiped my legs, with women there is sucking, the water slops our bodies. We come clean, our clits beat like twins to the loons rising up. We are awake. Snails sprinkle our gulps. Fish die in our grips, there is sand in the anus of dancing. Tatoosh Island hardens in the distance. We see its empty stones sticking out of the sea again. Jacynthe holds tinder under fire to cook the night’s wood. If we had men I would make milk in me simply.