oyster mother

[a nourishing picnic of warm, tangible bread;

a calm vacation.]

The presence of a childless mother hauntes the edge of the sea.

pale & halfless,

o)She

is all psycho-physical projection, and so free

among the knotted, ancient nets of relation that surround her-

her pain echoing from the depths,

and shimmering in the world of representation.

o)She

haunts,

in iridescent howls.

gaunt.

by the edge

of the sea where the milk-white foam

licks the pink rims of conches,

and the families travel to remember

the origin and the end of Everything.

o)She

watches everything pass,

and she holds her symbol, the indigo

shell, the fruitless

hull that sleeps

in empty halves.

o)She

howls forever in a soprano that paints

the world in iridescent pastels.

o)She

has a particular sadness that everyone knows,

and bloody knees because she kneels.

so much. no-one can touch

o)Her

because no-one is her

)Other half.

and no-one knows her

o)Her

companions are the constellations that mean so much.

They are given mythos to console them for their untouchability.

Where is her child?