Relic

I found this jawbone at the sea's edge:

There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or

To flap for half an hour and turn to a

Continue the beginning.

The deeps are cold:

In that darkness camaraderie does not hold.

Nothing touches but, clutching, devours.

And the jaws,

Before they are satisfied or their stretched

Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare.

Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach:

This is the sea's achievement; with shells,

Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.

Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts

Indigestibles, the spars of

That failed far from the surface.

None grow

In the sea.

This curved jawbone did not

But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.