Grave Beside the Sea

Walking along the family blanketed beach

Just beyond tourist landmarks where human and animal prints overlap

Upon a grainy treasure map of a small child’s mind,

I notice a shattered nautilus lying in the course granite sand

Protruding from its half-open grave

Reaching out to the sea, hoping to be saved by the tidal Minos

 

Placing gently the shell within my shriveled palm

Imagining it was an artifact, an old diary or even an old scribbled note

left in a book within a flooded basement,

I begin to wonder the stories it could tell

Drifting through aquatic worlds until it met its fate within my palm

 

I prod the seven pieces clumped together

Atop the lifelines stretching across my hand

As if I was asking an old friend to relay a story,

But with the silence of the wind,

The prickling heat upon its fissures

Its stories are taken, left to my interpretation

And with a rushing wave, I return it to the sea.