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Saturday, June 04, 2016

Pallium

A small clatter made by shells as the lake
laps at my feet, shuffles the nacreous or
bone-white calling cards left by recently
departed mollusks. Piled on the mud flat
like beggars’ cupped palms, or cast-offs
from a shoreline three-card monte grift;
all their soft former residents long gone
and literally dis-mantled. What wonders
they were: an inner mantle, secret skins
secreting shields for their tendernesses;
those pilgrims’ markers sheltering them
as they grew fat. It seems simpler to be
housed safe in flesh alone; not restlessly
tossing under cloudy skies, shedding the
artifacts that add drag to my wandering.

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