A tottering gentleman walks near the edge, his shoes no longer sinking as they once did. The bay pulls back. Low tide. A glimpse of mud flats reminds him of a thigh, of her. A quick flush, embarrassed by unshared thoughts. On the jetty a few oysters and mussels gape like old folks sleeping. The sicksweet scent of death blends with the exuberant breath of critters who feast on the shore's edge, gorging on life before the tide returns. The Delaware Bay etches the gray February skies. A single tern hovers a foot over a careless spearing, dives, then seemingly walks on water a moment as it swallows the writhing flash of silver, no longer alive, not yet dead. He lifts a whelk shell, and sniffs. His nose knows before he does, and the still rotting corpse is tossed back to the water. A grey shadow scuttles towards the whelk flesh.
Ebb" tide` (?).
The reflux of tide water; the retiring tide; -- opposed to flood tide.
© Webster 1913.
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