The shell hangs on a golden string
asymmetric lines curved together
in the valley that roots my neck
a picture inside I keep on holding.

Cheap cloths on a public beach,
the young us playing catch,
a moment in colors of chess,
caught by a since lost lens.

It holds all those stormy nights
I came to sleep by your side,
all the "how was your day"s
of the greening of the leafs.

The cold of the suns that set
shed of that and other salt
and dried, pressured into pulp
holds the bones in a pole.

Me, a flag to the wind of time
tight to it gaze the reviewer,
it is that shell of once upon
my compass to where I've been.

But the tide keeps at my ankles
resigned to rob under my feet
the desert that there stood
steady as the clock's beat.

The day will come it will win
when of this shell I lose grip
and holding on to a gem
won't brace me for the slip.

Because it is your history
the concrete ground
the future is built upon.