"Conchology"

...for Gerald...

coiling and recoiling like a seashell
your mind spirals up from the black beach
where voices swell and break into your dreams
and breath scuttles sideways from cell to cell

here on this high bluff carve your fishhook
and cast into the waves a line of stars
to snag whatever new words rise to meet you

kai moana koru aroha


Helen Sword
March, 2009.