The ocean’s tears
Discover the salt on my cheek
As I genuflect before the glistening shore.

The succulent swells respond
With nothing but their maritime advice,
“We’re all born dying,” they say to me
“So let the waves of life make you feel alive.”

But you’re the one who makes me live.

As I watch night
Wrap her claws around the sun
And the last gull pass over the trickling rays,
The conch shell to my left becomes
Silvered in the light of the moon.
I lift its glassy corpse
And press my ear to it,
Waiting for more than the sound
Of the gently dancing waves,
But even their sound is a lie.

I listen no more.

Tightening my eyes,
I can see the memories of our past,
Weightless glimpses they are.

I gaze up
And beg the stars to descend
From their black silky kingdom
And whisper your manifold song in my ear

But I ask no more
Of the waves, the shell, and the stars
For they captured you
And they hold their secret tight.