To the Sea

My mother took the bag from its box— 
home to my father’s ashes for thirteen years— 
and poured its heft into a form she made  
on the potter’s wheel—a vase, damp and unfired. 
She pinched the rotating lip, and sealed the clay  
perfectly shut, a technique I haven’t yet mastered.

We planned to launch it like a football at low tide,  
but when we arrived, the beach was lined with people, 
and there was no subtle way for my brother to toss it out past  
the children kneeling in the surf, the surfers awaiting the break. 

To carry my father out, arm above my head, heavy with him— 
or hold him against my chest, side-stroking  
with one hand while the clay disintegrated into the water— 
I wasn’t dressed for it.

Instead, we dropped him in the water by the docks  
by the old Shrimp Shack, all 6’4” of him, 
and I watched the vessel slowly descend, a few bubbles  
emerging as if the last breath left in a dying lung.