(at a tourist shop on the interstate, north Florida)
No, not ruddy, but pale rust cut
with yellow-bone of ocean,
a chunk of dawn sky. Across
the knots and jags that swirl the crown:
a gash. No, not the crack of beak or tooth,
nor accident of surge and stone that leaves
such remnants on the shore for lovers
walking the morning's ebb.
No, a shock of steam that thrust out
the mollusk, washed the walls
of muscle and trust. What was hidden
is hollow; what was living is dead,
perhaps eaten. And the smooth
pale lips of the conch say nothing,
though we attribute to them
the elegies of surf, their song.
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