I can still hear the echo
of the shell that was
your life.
The sea. The air.
The absent flesh.
How much walking
was done along that sand
in sun, in rainstorm,
words melding
with birds’
insistent chirping.
Almost nothing
was discussed
that did not adorn
landscape or people.
Nothing was
signed in history.
Waves brought back
again and again
possibilities
we could not touch.
Now I see my own
emptiness—its whorled
shape, its coral heart
still not silent,
not at rest.
