Summer Carcass Poem by Ben Partenay

Some stories
we only want to tell
the first part. and I
don't even want to
tell you this.

I want to leave it at the opening
I want to let it end
with sun filtering
through evergreens and a seat
made of beach grass
I want to know which door
to open
which to close.
It's going to rain tomorrow and
I shut the window.

It's summer and
there is no smell of
catastrophe, there are no
broken promises and wind only
brushes hair and fills sails.
Whatever it is,
it isn't a hurricane. It
isn't a tornado whipped up
over the Kansas flats
It was a breeze, it was only ever
a breeze.

It's summer and the wind is soft.
It's summer and the beach
is full of sun and people.
It's summer and the wind
is only a feather not a sword.
We should end the story here
in the sun and the cool wind.
We should end this story
in the summer.

It's going to rain tomorrow and I
cross the hall
close the window in the bathroom.
I make sure to latch it

Later, on the beach,
the wind is cold and the sun
is a fractal
that ends in the waves.
I look down at sand and
crushed shells, halves
of crabs and bits of sand dollars.
Behind me
a child yells
"Come look we found
a whole carcass."
His mother runs towards him,
yelling.

It was summer and the body
of the sea lion
blended blindly
into the shadows and heaps
of waterlogged
driftwood.