Passion Conch
No sun today, the rainy
season barely begun, so
we sleep late before
Performing the instinctive,
casual, tourists' ritual:
combing the beach
in search of the unusual
among the wrack and weedy
debris. Ahead of me,
you scan the tide-
line for what remains,
the left-behind, the false
and glittering sapphires
the salt's slow churning
has tossed ashore -
and pull up a shell
still filled with muscle,
purple with black
stitching, the heart's
colors, pulsing:
Passion Conch:
slug that has journeyed
farther than we have,
from silences deeper
than sleep, withstood
pressure beyond weather,
seining the forgotten,
prophetic psalms of the sea -
all ear, or tongue,
or one foot
probing, till arriving
here, in your hand,
object of our naming:
Passion Conch: tight knot
of spongy knowledge,
scholar of coral
passages, blind traveler
absorbing the world:
salt water, green
minutiae, perhaps two lovers
biding time in the gray
light, in light
rain, turning their deep
desire over and over,
...
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