Danny Gentile #29 - Abalone

Abalone

Sucking into your mother-of-pearl, your outer shell

remains a furry husk, giving no hint of the dichotomies

that occur between your body & its seat. When you

have gone, the opalescent rainbow that once held you

will offer up a pierced & concave shape as an ornament,

or provide the focus for a variance of light, reaching

down to its resting place. In contrast, the movements

that surround it seem like a whirlwind, with the shell

as its eye, ambivalent & stationary. In this way it sits

as an appropriate memorial to your sedentary life.

You were never regarded as something both still

& contemplative, but perhaps that is simply an error

of our dry assessment. But your residence, no longer

goes unnoticed, as it promises to retain an aspect

of your silent rumination, in the unexpected aquarium

of a living room. It will hold many things through this

second lifetime. And the memory of asymmetry will be

quantified, as it cups the ephemera of that other ocean.

From Nine Poems on Aquatic Life