She thinks she has a pretty good idea
what seaweed is. It’s bushes under water.
and half a clamshell doesn’t call for words

from either of us, so we send it sailing
back to the shallows to fulfill itself.
When asked, I try to explain what a heap of kelp

is doing above the tide line, bladders and holdfasts
shrinking from so much air, but I stop
short when sand fleas jump out of the folds.

I redirect her attention to the horizon,
where the setting sun is doing something more
familiar to her, but she goes wading ahead

to concentrate on the carcass of a scoter
still trailing the black feathers of one wing.
She stoops to pick it up (one thumb, one finger

As precise as a gull’s beak) and holds it dripping
halfway out of the arriving surf
and looks up at me sideways. Our eyes meet.

She seems to be accusing me of something
she can’t yet say out loud. I hear
my teacher’s impassioned voice recite John Donne:

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore.
but keep it to myself. She lets the bird fall
back to where it had been and balances
her brand-new body above the water and sand
and against the wind splashes ahead of me.