On Finding a Clam Shell at City Hall Park, Nowhere Near the Ocean 

The broken edge shining in the grass, the pearly cup of it, the rainbow
shine, jagged, pale—like a thin stone. The wind cold on my back and bare feet as I bend 

like when I hunted the wrack line for coral. There was a hunk the size of my head and pale as the winter I’d run from. I searched the water for fish the colors 

of these tulips: yellow and crimson and white, counted the swimming pools lined along shore. Watched a Fritos bag blown off a balcony, spread the sunscreen, 

saw the river run green and brown, the wind carry the bag into the water. I tried to pull trash from the ocean. Tried to turn off every light, turn 

baby sea turtles back out to sea, turn and turn and turn—the Earth around the sun, and now it’s spring. Even this changes in our hands. 

See these trees? The shock of fuchsia blossoms. So well-tended, all in a row.