“Baker Beach,” by Tess McCarthy c. 2018

Great sea of wealth,

I see you now and clear
your tides wash in sea glass, debris and

driftwood so beaten down that it looks like pebble stones. My heart comes back too on that tide; I see it now:

foamy, soapy-pink, bubbly heart has come back (it was once out to sea)

lost

but found again on my bare feet.

Sea of wealth takes everything in:
the pollution, the debris, forgotten things, industrial waste and a million years of hopeless loves.

Those hopeless loves all have washed their sins away

and they wish
for their hearts to return
to them some day.