I start the day in my hometown
circling a labyrinth as eight seekers
wind around its twists and turns
as the sun climbs and warms us.

I end the day by the sea at low
tide, so low that rocks I’ve rarely
seen here lollygag above the waves
like lazy seals, winter storms
having swept away dump trucks’
worth of sand, tossing huge logs
like matchsticks dropped from heaven
at the high water mark.

And in between you discover,
curled in the bathroom sink
in the little casa by the sea,
an expired mouse so tiny
it looks embryonic.

I’ll take care of it, you say,
knowing that I don’t like to
dispose of dead rodentia.

How? I ask.

Aerial burial, you say,
as though you’ve given
this some thought or
done so before.

And I follow you—little
dead thing in a paper towel
in your hand—as you head
outside to the deck where
a vast meadow gleams golden
in late afternoon light.

You windmill your pitching
arm backward and, at
twelve o’clock, catapult
what was into the hereafter.

We have no idea where
it has gone. Which seems
about right—like this sweet
day, like this tiny life,
like the sand taken back
into the heart of the sea.