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A weekly video reading of poetry by the poet.

Near Flanders Bay
by Linda Opyr

The sun pointed to the feet of a scrub oak
where an empty, ochre shell rested in the grass.

No turtle in sight.  No fox.
Nothing to tell how or when.

I lifted what remained, turned it within my hands.
Felt the lines, ridges.
Its phantom limbs gripping the air.

I carried it to the beach.  To the car.  Carried it home.
All afternoon, returned to what I had found.

Each day someone loses someone.
Finds time alone to lift what can be lifted.
Look and look again.

Today this was not my story.
But it could have been.  And so it was.

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