A Day Later

by Jeremy Marks                            

Bones glistening with fat are lying flat and carelessly stacked in a smoldering pit on the beach. Scampering beyond this bowl of ash and sand are the last smoldering cinders of pine; they dance among the scattered thorax of Blue Crabs; the cracked and crevassed.

The fire feasters were too full and now the gulls will have their way; they loop, descend, hover and spear on raised feet. There is meadow hay encircling this small place; it snares ribbons of smoke along its stalks.

The bay is water barely blue -the fog vapor is gray. Morning is a mixing of water and mist in a dim overlay of weak sunlight. First there is no shore, and then there is no beach. There is just so much bay.

On a strange loblolly branch, held high and newly dead, a pair of bald eagles chitters. They grind their beaks to bark in blench dawn; the sun front-lighting their milk white domes. When they stop, they wait; both pairs of eyes catch the silent gray light drawn like a shade up their yellow bills. The night is shed like old skin.

The eagles spy the offshore with its shallows; like osprey, they know how the fish go. A salt breeze moves through the trees; anchored skiffs knock together and there are buoys.