Hour after hour this thin rock
clings the way all mussels
expect stone to be coated

nourish with darkness and salt
though there’s no shoreline
swollen with businesslike glue

sweetened for you dead and dirt
that can no longer free itself
still counts on flowers, on the visit

and on the stay, on these ancient walls
being built alongside each other
–a roof was never in the works

just ruins, rocks and mourners
sticky from rocks left out
wilting in the shallows and their arms.