THE MAN WITH SEASHELLS
The sun pours long light down the beach in torrent
and the strand is wet. A man gestures and approaches me.
He is on bare foot and holding a pair of shoes in his right hand,
neatly dressed as if he stops here after a banquet
or something else. He dips his hands into his pockets
and brings out beautiful seashells he picks there,
to ask me what I think. And as I tell him they’re very fine,
a smile polished in the bright sunshine rolls over his face.
He turns and leaves. Later that evening in the room,
I picture the two of us, on this shore of unbridled marvels and slow time,
our words like those finer things people come here
and look for, but never find.
This article appears in May 2010.
