A man builds a barricade of driftwood at the end of his sand dune.
A wall to keep back the rising tide of absolution.
No one’s sins will matter when the inundation comes.
No one’s fears will last long.

He steps over piles of carrion.
Gulls sweep over like drones.
Try to look at this like it isn’t a warzone.
Our eyes have seen things which can’t be unseen.
He wedges another log between the piles.

Another dead tree between him and the end.
God calls out to him:

“lay down with the dead fishes,
you are not the five thousand,
you are the food”

He wedges another log between the piles.
He swears at the sky.

Gulls rip and tear at the corpses.
When he sleeps it is to the rhythmic sound of his own end.
The thud of the surf marking out the remains of his days.
How long no one knows. Perhaps not even God.

But it is coming, the becoming, the moment when kicking and screaming,
we crawl back to the sea.
Back from whence we came.
The inevitable end of the game.
He will become the ocean, and the ocean will set him free.