Hancock Point, Early Autumn

The swells that breathe about the wharf
untangle mats of sea wrack, and the land breeze
sorts out strands of brackish fume.

Three sailboats anchor the horizon,
and the day, splayed across the September sea,
gnaws and cracks the marrowless sun.

Our season weakens; soon its weather
will bruise the sea with shoals of listing clouds.
Autumn is a bleached whelk chrysalis,

a mermaid’s purse of brine and bone,
where memory founders, and the dipping tern
dreams of sleep between the furrowed waves.