Sea Shells


Long ago, I dreamt my mother
gathered sea shells as she wandered
the ocean’s edge, bony toes
sinking into dark sand, dear feet
blessed and blessed again
by the scouring of salt.

And in my dream she bent
like a dancer, hands darting
to capture the spiral a snail left, 
the smile of a clam shell
abandoned to the glimmer of dusk.

She has been dead a month,
and I do not dream.

But in that long ago, 
she gathered shells in a pail, 
returned at dark to some lit room
and laid them out to shine.

I reach for those shells now,
and one-by-one I hold them
to my ear, greedy
for the timbre of her voice
among those ceaseless waves.

-first appeared in Along River Road, 2005.