The Seashell

The Seashell

 

Or As If I Knew

 

-

 

I met an old woman

Who was looking for seashells

On a windy winter beach

 

She looked cold

In her windbreaker,

With the hood pulled up

And tightened around

Her small, pink face

 

So, she started telling me

About the world, as if she knew,

Or as if I knew but needed to be prodded.

 

She was broken by the death of a sister

And seemed angry with the weather

 

She said so several times,

 

And I felt it

 

In the jitter of her eye-contact

The moment that she took me in,

 

And later, when she let me go

 

We spoke variously about

What old people know:

 

 

 

That aging

Is not for sissies;

 

That all wounds

Do not heal,

 

And that no fear

Is worse than

 

The fear

 

Of fear.

 

She showed me a seashell

That she found that day,

 

Letting me hold it

 

Briefly,

 

And then she left

 

When she was

Down the beach a way,

I took a photograph of her,

 

Disappearing

 

(I guess, forever)

 

On the island's end,

 

Her seashell, pocketed,

 

And her exit made difficult

By a serendipitous wind.