Sea Glass and Agate
sit in a bowl next to the photo
that looks black and white,
its vastness lost in atmospheric haze,
him wrapped in grey light.
A distant lighthouse pulsating through
the fog, a premonition from some
unknowable shore, before the nights
laced with heroin became interlocked
with days, turning years into decades,
dragging him under.
They say the great lake never gives up her dead,
yet scattered survivors escape to the shore,
smooth and unscathed as this polished sea glass
held tightly in the palm of my hand.