Call of Air

Accursed would you go as far as to covet
your neighbor’s long-gone past…
Melancholy this sixth sense!
No the appetite for things ebbing
already leaves a vast beach for the signs
and I go and turn over one by one
             (at the risk of losing the onyx of my fingernail)
these slimy rocks where seaweed froths
So many brackish secrets haunt the low tides!
But surely the seashell I hold to my ear
will only ever rustle from the expected echo
of my blood flowing back
To anyone who wants to hear
             (mother-of-pearl’s captive)
the intractable ocean voice
a poem will be—always—
the best conch