The Sand Hill Review          http://www.sandhillreview.org       2001 November

 

Like the Ocean From A Shell

 

There's a whine inside her head

like a far siren, the other side of the tracks,

the other side of the tracks and then some

as the goldpink moon beckons in a peachblue sky.

In a peachblue sky she watches as "I" separates from "he and I".

 

This night will be a tunnel with no light at the end.

This night will be the end of the end of a long story.

This night will be the skin bruise that will fade infinitely slowly.

This night will take the shape of a body falling.

 

With the whine inside her head, she is a motor thrumming.

Thrumming like a cloud of bees, she can't find home.

Find home, she says, it's the place where there is no light.

No light at the heart of the matter.

 

She instructs herself, take a shovel and dig.

She instructs, the food in your hand matters.

Instructs:  believe in dawn.

Reflects:  there is nothing in which to believe.

 

The whine is pulled by the gold hot needle of loss,

silken whine threaded around each bone of rib,

from rib through the heart's center,

puncturing the pubic bone at last but never exiting.

Never exiting, the whine moving across the tracks,

entering her ears like the ocean from a shell.

 

JCWatson