At the edge of the sea, curving sand
and a line of dead fish
Like shield abandoned after battle
No sign of suffocation or visible
putrefaction
Jewels polished by the sea
sarcophagi
enclosing their own deaths
those fish shared
a ghostly
peculiarity
None had eyes
Twin cavities in each head
As if something said
the land might claim their bodies
Pacheco, José Emilio. "Eye Witness." An Ark for the Next Millennium: Poems. Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993. p. 13.