Derek brushes sand from driftwood. He looks for a crack he can poke his knife in, wrenches it back and forth till the wood splits and all the little creatures spill out. The beach is perfectly isolated, and every couple steps we can pick up sand dollars, whelks, sea stars, barnacles, and urchins. The gulls take their time picking through the guts. The only thing that slows us down is the driftwood and the hollow silence of the ghost town next door.

— from “The Little Boxes have Holes,” The Coachella Review, Summer 2017.

Thanks to the US Fish and Wildlife Service; UA Museum of the North Entomology (Adak, 2015)