a seashell
What might enshrine
geology’s raw nerve
or a French curve
spiralling through the line
edging this broken shape,
this porous, paid-for lime,
endowed the rugged climb
down the stone landscape
into a present marked
by sediment’s raw fear,
laid down year by year,
each grain a miniature ark.
Curved as a coracle,
the fossil shell stood out
amid the gravel rout
like the bone of an oracle,
waiting for the words
to make the future sense
as Romans at some expense
did from the livers of birds.
Do two lovers owe
the strangers they were at the start
more than their faltering hearts?
The past would say no.
