old shows

we stood on shore
recreating a ticker-tape parade
with what little remained
of a beached whale
who drowned in the pitiless tide

though the bone and organ menagerie was absent of joy
and it commemorated a moment
unworthy of confetti
or balloon saviors

it soothed the arthritis in our fingers
to make something
that would be absorb by the blackness
of its dehydrated eye