There in the seance of pewter dark and falling afternoon I ran from the rain child’s father snail shells eye empty seismic, abrading, polished sutures grey skulls in catacombs tumbling, unmade with that peculiar, watchful nonchalance of sacrifice gone too far into neglect the gods respond with neither grace nor storms but the dinosaur fragments of fossil nacre, edges inviting pressure against, the too soft mollusc silent, salt and piercing pedestal like a kiss lightning fragile (immediacy erased) in the afterimage inverse of the slowly leeching beachcomber’s lope long passing steps
