Christmas Afternoon, Low Tide

Sea worms
litter the winter beach –
wriggling rings,
tiny Christmas wreaths
of bristling pink holly
and red berry ossicles.

Unwrapping
their presents of clams,
seagulls feast
like it’s Saint Crispin’s day –
an all you can eat
martyrdom of bivalves.

The bluff has given back
fifty feet to storms
another house will soon fall,
calve it’s cinder blocks
and sticks in
miracle birth.

You hand me gifts of beach glass
but my pockets are full,
my store return slips them
back to the sand
when you bend down at the tide line –
magi of starfish, cockles and myrrh.