Here, engraved in someone else’s
name, is a bench where we can sit
and watch the waves go in and out.
Lean back, sop up the horizontal sun
trawling west across Georgia Strait.
Why don’t I leave you here?
Why don’t I take a stroll out where
the tide will turn, that wave-stamped
swathe of darker, wetter sand
where families shore up their castle walls
and sift debris for intact shells
faux gems of bottle glass and fossil scraps
of runic worm-written wood
the sea collects for us to hold.