The thing in the seashell slips back

in the sea. Where it sank is reflected

a flock of geese, like a matador

 

flagging his cape. Life

on my houseboat carries on. Today

I clean the deck. Sometimes my spirits

 

are lifted by Murphy’s Oil Soap

or Lestoil, which smell like light.

But I’m not doing well today.

 

I spent an hour in the closet already.

I forced myself to venture out, to walk

the beach and bring back

 

the conch, photograph it in color.

Its blue shell and pink operculum

astonished the black backdrop,

 

but now I’ve let it go, I had to let it go.

Sometimes I don’t do well.

The geese are gone. The neighbor wrens

 

return with a shoelace, a treasure.

The old woman one mooring over watches

everything I do and nods severely

 

if I catch her eye. At the mailboxes once,

she whispered to me, “See the bride. She is

an old woman,” Now she coughs. We both

 

look over to where a picnic

has been left on the dock, and a peach

rolls into the dark water.