on briefly shorn shoreline, a new moon gives
its tide to abalone and urchin. you slip
a dull knife between tenderness
and rock, a gentle twist and it slips
free. you place the spiral of shell into the palm
of your hand, the shock of flesh only a few
centimeters above the pearl of bone, and rock
a honed knife into the exposure. the abalone grips
your hand, as it is cut from its home, these
its final shudderings of life.
you build it a story, thinking it clings
to your warm flesh as though clinging
to life. though these are movements
independent of thought and desire,
autonomic, dispassionate. you remember
her bare feet in the last nights
of your shared bed, how weeks after
she had severed her love from you, her feet
would still seek out the warmth of your humming
legs, cradling in the canyon of your bent
knee. and you would think
that maybe this language of her body was speaking
for her heart, her tongue numbed
by the languor of sleep. you knew then
but did not have the courage to believe, and you
know now though still feel the bright cut
of her cleaving; her motions
were autonomic, her desires
for warmth, that of body, and did not
lap at the shores of her heart.
her heart, already shell, seeking
for new tenderness.
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