These too are called spines—
the spears that spiral a conch
like a sharpened staircase,
razored steps encircling the shell.
To collect such needled containers
is to ask for a wound, jabbed
by syringes shaped undersea.
What beautiful forms a body makes
to guard itself: tined like a comb
that untangles a goddess’s hair,
ridged like a mountain range,
the spikes of a star half-buried
in the sand. Our human spines
are weakness by comparison.
We fracture. We dislocate.
We lose ourselves in the city,
pelagic, and every jaw holds
rows of pointed teeth. Once I woke
and could barely move for a day,
untwisting myself in tired ripples.
I felt removed from my defenses,
left soft and brackish in the sheets.
Where was the spire, the whorl,
the aperture leading into dark?
There was no sound of ocean
held inside me. I was not tinged
with the blushing pink of dawn.