I drop the broken shell bits into a basket
I make with my dress—the one with
the spaghetti stain the shape of an island.
The bits collect nearby,
a ship graveyard.

This is the Texas coast,
difficult to find a whole sand dollar,
a whole conch, a whole sundial,
a whole whelp, a whole scallop.
Anything worth a damn.
At least in the first ten minutes.

Here the beaches are muddy flats,
the water drunk on silt.
You have to dedicate yourself
to digging your toes in the gray sludge,
to squatting for disappointment,
to sunburned shoulders like cooked pork,
to stepping over dead jellies like failed bath toys.
Then maybe
as the wave retreats,
in the soapy foam,
among the bubbling sand
—mole crabs buried and breathing—

you’ll discover the halves of a sand dollar
a football field apart,
and they’ll fit like continents
reunited.