The day felt like it was frayed… or cut,
As one bad moment bled into the next into the next and the next…
Fear and loneliness rose like a leviathan,
our past selves ran like deserting rats.

Anxious nausea in the pit of my stomach. Breathe!
I pause at a photo on the mantle
A family of laughing children frolicking in waves
and ask myself Where did these people go?

I remember holding the pure white shell in our joined hands
clasped together in a prayer of thankfulness and communion.
We listened for the wisdom of the ocean
and all was still. all was silent. all was at peace.

Where was that shell? Did we keep it?
If I put it to my ear, would that day come roaring back?
An idle fantasy that lasted a moment,
An idyll in this day’s grim track.

But now the only shell is…