The Swerving Through the Deep

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

The shell is more than spiral only, more

Than time, mere time.  The nautilus lies curled

In time and in eternity, the shore

Between them where the shell lies waiting, furled

Between them always by the bronze-like strand,

Between mortality and beauty, shell

That he and life have made where corals stand

In beauty underneath the turquoise swell

Of waves.  Interior of pearl and gloss

Inside the creature’s armor wonders dwell,

The eye and roots of tentacles like floss

With stickiness, the start of victims’ hell.

  The curvature is lovely in its sweep

    In fathomed beauty of its sleepless sleep.

©  Phillip Whidden