Pitched overboard together, what could we do

But claw and climb against each other for air

Dancing our drowning dance, greedy and gasping

To sink and breach and sink

Then our skin turned to sponge

Our fingernails flaked off, and losing our purchase

We fizzled into spittle and floated like flotsam

Across indifferent tides

The Coast Guard never came, and why would they?

From up high we only looked like waves

Crashing against each other again and again

While on the beach they called our screams soothing

And each hour a hundred years passed

And each year we slipped further into each other

Until we were one thing and that thing became rooted

Improbable pearl, into a great stone we grew

Now we rise from the surf, and the waves part in deference

Little girls on the shore shape sand into our likeness

And it’s starting to feel like it means something, like it matters

When they spot this sculpture carved and polished by pain

Point it out to their mommies and ask them our name