With rod and tackle box,

I'm slogging through soft sand,

 

a red sun going down in the surf,

swag-belly clouds drifting in

 

with Ray, only two months dead,

going on about girls that summer

 

we studied French in Québec and

guzzled Labatts at the Chien d'Or,

 

about how he'll marry again, keep

at it until he gets it right-Pas vrai?

 

Above the tide wrack, a woman

in a two-piece with half my years

 

kneels struggling in the sand

with a pillow of feathers,

 

one wing flapping-a pelican

tangled in fish line, treble hook

 

in the bill pouch, the other in its wing.

Ray says, Ask her out for a drink

 

but she says, Could you give me a hand?

I drop the tackle and secure the wing

 

while she croons to calm him and

with one free hand untangles the line.

 

With pliers from the tackle box,

I expose the barbs and carefully clip,

 

a total of six loud snaps. Then I hold

the bird while she frees the last tangle

 

and we step back, join the onlookers,

a father explaining care to his kids.

 

The pelican now tests his wings, rowing

in place. He looks around and seems

 

to enjoy the attention, just as Ray did

in bars, buying drinks and telling jokes.

 

But this college boy with a can of Bud

is no joke and says they watched it flap

 

all afternoon from that deck on the dune.

His buddy agrees with a belch

 

that buys a round of frat boy laughter.

Ray tells me the kid needs his clock cleaned

 

just when the pelican waddles up

and puts his soft webbed foot on mine.

 

He tilts his head to catch my look, then

flapping runs into the air, tucks his feet,

 

and climbs, turning over our small circle,

before heading west. Dazzled and dumb,

 

I'm faintly aware of the woman, then gone,

weightless and soaring over water, looking

 

down on myself slogging through sand,

certain that I'm being watched,

 

if only by another self

who will have to tell how it happened.