Splinters from a dead tree, afloat at sea,
burrow into my neck,
jolting me awake at sunset,
reminding me that the thorns serve
to keep us looking to the horizon
for a softer place to lay.

Maybe life can drift. Maybe it can float by,
like wood that forgot it was part of a forest.
I too was torn from the forest,
adrift without the ones
who once held me steady.

But then,
in the blur of a mirage,
I’d land on pain’s shore.
And I’m sure
that life, out on that log,
was gentler than this:
fire ants, rocky beaches,
the carcass of a beached whale,
and creatures that never found their way
back to the sea.