Ed Keefe, a selectman in Provincetown,
said he would often see Mary Oliver
walking around the village
plucking poems from pine trees.
Wearing a tank top, khaki shorts,
and Birkenstocks, Mary would stroll
down Commercial Street
watching tourists and townies.
Coffee from The Wired Puppy.
Newspaper from Adams pharmacy.
Give a biscuit to the Golden Retriever
in front of East End Books.
Arrive at Race Point Beach.
Watch the geese form chevrons.
Terns divebombing for minnows.
A wooden sailboat gliding along.
On a Thursday in September,
Mary arrived at Race Point.
She smelled the salt stench
of a humpback whale.
Forty feet of black shale.
The whale was named Basket.
The coroner indicated that she died
of chronic entanglement.
Mary touched the pectoral fin,
then she rubbed the underbelly.
The police asked her to move along.
A team pushed the corpse into the sea.
Rumor has it that Mary updated her will.
When I’m gone, please bequeath
my inheritance to the whales,
then toss my ashes into the sea.
