Mal de la mer, or I walked the island searching for you - to delete

 

The more we know the further we are away from them --- John Berger

1.

À l’îsle, where sealers, marauders, naturalists came, the amphibology

of strangers-not-estranged.

Trying to eulogise, outlining from ornithology to anthology,

almost preservation.

My first words are amatory, armoury, (à)mourir                        to have and to hoard

                                      a damaged bone, the tarsometarsus, a prized feather

                                                                                                 (... don’t think it hasn’t hurt me).

2.

Driving to the lighthouse, where your bones lie buried under grass,

all the grave sites dug up, developed by a Vietnamese investor

below the golf course, code en-ligne,                 a photograph credit reads: [juvenile and adult femurs,

above, of dwarf emu. Supplied, Natural Museum of History]. 
            
                                                   Or the rank kelp at Surprise Bay, knuckled, wind-wracked, its volley

gunshots                                                  the sand-logged ship’s compass, and snuff box. 

Recycled parts of you: plume, fable, subject, object                      third specimen hitherto

                                                                                                            unaccounted

                                                                                                            for.