every one of them pearls

in morning’s candour they are plunged once again
into nacreous anonymity,
little oyster-spawn, dreams cut down to size,
pared, sliced off at the edges,
stuffed into shells with room to spare.

See it from up here:
wheeling above a rocky cape.
Watch shell upon shell
be sand-blasted smooth
by a fierce ocean wind.

They could be beautiful.
They would be beautiful.
If I could but shuck them,
and get at the bittersweet flesh.