We spiraled down the escarpment road, with the dog,

keenly Houdini-twisted out of his harness, panting at the view,

and found the beach below torn open.

Great hunks of sand tossed crudely from the dunes.
A mass grave of mutton-birds had been swept ashore

resting in a gentle swash-curved line.

Charcoal thumb-smudge across the berm.

Do you suppose there must have been a storm out on the sea?
You asked, but neither of us knows what happens

out further than the frothing waves. The dog,

a westie-bitsa-something-terrier, nudges at a corpse.

Finds it unsavoury. Common. Looks up,

shakes out his skin, twitches his nostrils.

Throw the ball! Throw the ball! a swinging tongue begs

the taste of mortality already forgotten. 
But the death sitting mucus-heavy

on the muffled ocean breath, tarnishes

that pure grey sky, for us proves harder to shift,

convicted in its cheap talismans;

beaks and feet and feathers and flesh.

The waves crumble ever, as always, in.