The Seashell

I met an old woman

Who was looking for seashells

On a windy winter beach.

 

She looked cold

In her windbreaker,

With the hood pulled up

And tightened around

Her broad, pink face.

 

So, she started telling me

About the world, as if she knew,

Or as if I knew but needed to be prodded.

 

She was broken by the death of a sister -

 

She said so several times,

 

And I felt it

 

In the jitter of her eye-contact

The moment that she took me in,

And later, when she let me go.

 

We spoke variously about

What old people know:

 

That aging is not for sissies;

 

That all wounds

 

Do not heal;

 

And that no fear is worse

Than the fear of fear.

 

She showed me a seashell

That she found that day,

 

Letting me hold it

 

Briefly,

 

And then she left.

 

When she was down the beach a way,

I took a photograph of her,

 

Disappearing on the island's end,

 

Her seashell, now pocketed

And hanging heavily

At her side.