After

Here we float on rafts made of rubber boots;
their strings were long enough to lash them 
together. Sea-going container ships ran aground 
and tipped their bales of dyed polyesters and pleather 
onto the sand. Everything glitterered, even in shreds, 
with the dust of unraveled wires. We remembered 
the last time we saw a crystal vase shining in window 
light, its throat packed with ruffled carnations. Farther 
north in the world, years ago we tunneled into a glacier's 
womb to shelve inventories of fruit and blossom and seed. 

Who knew the narrow-leaved
campion could emerge 
again from permafrost?