Perhaps I make up a tiny bit
for pocketing the occasional
heart-shaped piece of coral

or smooth fingernail of shell
when, at the high tide line, I spy
sharp-edged pieces twined

in ocean detritus. Then I stop,
bend, pick up the microplastics
that should never find their way

to the ocean, but do, many
collecting in the Great Pacific
Garbage Patch, an area of free-

floating detritus twice the size
of Texas. It is a small thing
to retrieve bits of bright green

and blue that may, in a previous
incarnation, been of some use
to humans—even more satisfying

to pick up a stray lens cap or shoe
sole or tangled fishing line.
But then, I think, what happens

to these bits of trash that I put
in today’s garbage? How much
of it migrates back to the ocean,

consumed by unsuspecting marine
creatures, some snared in ghost
nets, before more of these small

bits float their way to shores
all over the world, some of it,
no doubt, back to this

cherished stretch of sand?