Living the dark
days of the future, the architect angled
for sky—a mocked-
up chapel, a spire’s
prismed spike: all those tiny
severed rooms. Spring again’s a wash
of egg casings, like chains of blonde seaweed
tangled ashore: here a serifed spine, there
a sundered arm. Tattered
and toothy, all those braceletted
blown pods, and the one
still shrouded—an infant stilled
in its caul. A certain economy
to the dead, this minimal
exertion to memory: dovecote
or necropolis, the face is a winged
veil, a bell cave secreting
its cinerary urn, a blocked-letter name
stick-crossing the grained
facade like an urchin’s
snapped spines, like shell fragments
so aligned in sand as to appear
treasure, an outsized
singularity. Distinctly
lightning, the sinistral shell; any
whelk’s, the barbed
marble crest, the nipple
of ossified air topping the false
nautilus swirl any cathedral’s spiraling
staircase would have the eye
look up to through the marred heart
of spin. To sketch
the shadowed steps, sun-spiked lashes
halo the scepter, the shell’s mace
and drill, its mute
nacreless ribs. The wall
filling, all those put-out pearls
of window light; or vessels
post storm, low tide’s finds late sun
glisters, rending curtains
of ash to fire that perfect
gathering: the whole drowned world
salted over, sparking.
