Salt-Crusted Cliffs

A carved hollow
of the cliffs,
a crooked elbow
in the sheer face
of stone,
lover to the sea
in a residual embrace
like the weeping of the
gray-faced gulls
on chilly mornings.

The lowing of
lobster boats leaving the bay
for the open whale roads of
the Atlantic.
Bidding them godspeed the
jagged-faced outcroppings
meet the waves with a resounding
thrashing. Somewhere a seashell
is without its echo.

The sobriety of a Sunday morning,
the sea shaking off sleep,
dashing the remnants of a
rough night off onto
the shoals. Shipwrecks
lie here in salt-crusty disrepair
from decades past
and days of an angrier, younger
body of crested swaying waves.

The ships roll across
the reflection of thunderheads
in color and temperament
in the early dawn, no break for
a sunrise to color the
rumbling deep,
to splash the barren cliffs
with a blush of morning.

But the saltwater winds
still whistle work shanties
as the sailors cast lines
in the sea.