Spill is a polite way of saying haemorrhage

Tar-balls

"The best-case scenario is that it’s been burned, removed the volatility and the more harmful chemicals--that it’s been consumed." 

-Dan Turner, Mississippi Governor’s Office spokesman

At dawn, the children rush

to the shore, sandcastle buckets

or plastic Piggly-Wiggly bags

to catch the shapeless black gems

that wash up with the tide. Uncaught

by siphon or barrel, the kids

assign worth in words alone:

Cool! That’s a big one. Some debate

over the importance of clarity, adorned

as some are with sand, or shell, or stray

feathers. A ginger boy beams

with the specimen he now displays

in a gallon freezer bag: India ink

gelatin at rest; an obsidian

Man-o-War in his pride-shaking hands.

Laissez-faire remains true on the shore.

The bubble bursts as supply comes

and comes for weeks, the viscous nuisance

leaving 8-balls by the thousands with no

clean shot. A few miles out, the Gulf

coughs: retching, metastasized coughs

that rack anyone who hears. Disgust,

then fear, and only then pity in the right light.

Parents snap now at sons who come home

with slick sienna fingers. We are running

out of wonder, and paper towels, and patience

with these dinosaur bones, crawling back

ashore a few million carbon chains at a time.