Shells

Shells on my shelf are an empty civility

they speak of oceans lost to their memory

but whorled in their spiral architecture

they lure me into something

as complex and better designed

than a legal system, as intricate

as a nation’s finances and much

more beautiful. They’re dead

replicas of Leptis Magna

grounded on sand. They announce

that their once palpitating citizens

have spawned off, or salted into decay

leaving these bleached wonders, beached

now on my window ledge where a saltladen

breath of the Indian Ocean

whistles at their open doors.

Andrew Taylor