This is a bit silly, but it’s Saturday. I recently got a large illustrated guide to sea shells. There are some pretty wild names for sea shells. Today I challenge you to take a look at the list of actual sea shell names below, and to use one or more of them to write a poem. You poem doesn’t have to be about sea shells at all — just inspired by one or more of the names.
Peruvian Hat Snout Otter Clam Strawberry Top Incised Moon Sparse Dove False Cup-and-Saucer Leather Donax Shuttlecock Volva Striped Engina Tricolor Niso Triangular Nutmeg Shoulderblade Sea Cat Woody Canoebubble Ghastly Miter Heavy Bonnet Tuberculate Emarginula Lazarus Jewel Box Unequal Bittersweet Atlantic Turkey Wing*
Incised Moon
by Dot Hearn
It's night and the silence hangs on my tongue
while the streets hum and rumble with passage
of time and vehicles. The air is more still
because wind goes dormant at night
unless
there's a storm but tonight there's not
there is only a quiet
as the buses stop
and the commuters are gone
and those left on the streets
have nowhere particular to go
except from here to there
and timelines are fluid
for the most part
or I lie
and the cars filled with passengers
are not aimlessly wandering
and the music pulsing out of open windows
here on the edge of spring
are for others' enjoyment and the riders
couldn't care less.
No.
It's night in the city.
Past midnight and the inhabitants of the city
have changed
from the day crowd to the night crowd
though I am witness to both.
My blood pulses with the moon
recently eclipsed now moving toward vacancy
and I return home.
To read.
And then, to sleep.
*
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