“Man Shocked To Discover Brain Washed Up On the Beach.” by Ed Doerr

Ed is a teacher and the author of 'Sautéing Spinach With My Aunt' (Desert Willow Press, 2018). He was selected as a featured poet for Cathexis Northwest Press, and other words can be found in or forthcoming from Water/Stone Review, Hippocampus Magazine, One Teen Story, Perhappened, Parentheses Journal, Drunk Monkeys & more. Readers can follow him on Twitter (@EdDoerrWrites) and visit his website (eddoerr.com).

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Man Shocked To Discover Brain Washed Up On the Beach 1


Does anyone expect to reach the end whole?
Each step, a sloughing: a life measured
in the weight of loss accumulating.
The sun dims. A snow-blanketed bough snaps.
The cold presses air from lungs.
If we’re lucky, we offer our hearts willingly,
chamber by chamber, in effigy.
Without dust, how would we know
that a house once teemed with life?
You see, for thirty-six years, my guts
have trailed behind me, a slack rope:
even when I’m lost, I’m moored.
Far off, waves shatter against the shore--
in moonlight, like these, we iridesce,
so should you discover my brain
washed up on a beach, know this:
at the end of it, it’s a joy to be found.



1      Title taken from the headline of a CNN article published on 9/20/20.