Can you tell me how it made sense to you

dearest,

to sift through the sands that blew upon you

in heaps, mountains now; Can you tell me

how it made sense

to pick out grains from crumbling sea-shore castles

and hour-glasses and shells?

(Your fingers were dry when they found you,

the sand had caked about your fingernails.

There were traces of sand in the crease of your lips,

but they say it was an errant nail that finally did you in -

cut you up from the inside just the way you would have liked,

after the bath there was not a mark on your body

nothing to tell us you died fishing the grains from the mountain you were buried in)