Seward, Alaska, USA

Seward, AK

In the town that sounds like waste

or an expensive mistake,

on the beaches of the surf

they call Resurrection Bay,

surrounded by ancient stones

smoothed over by years on years

of tumultuous waters,

here, the cool and salty spray

dampens my hair and lashes;

and I squint against the sun,

which never moves in the sky,

during this endless summer,

on the last frontier, in this

population 2,000

fishing town, in a valley

that has become my home more

than you ever could have been,

even if we had survived.

No bay of Resurrection

could revive this withered heart,

once beating, once in rhythm,

now sunk to the ocean floor,

algae in its arteries,

its heat, cold beneath the waves.