Conus spurius, what does it say—this shield you held as long as you could against a world that would grind a palm of words to grains?
When I hold it to my ear, a voice appears the waves of static on a gramophone. Is singing? The words hardly resemble words.
How small it seems, this story of growth and hunger told in golden hieroglyphs. Dots and dashes blotch the spires, the beaded ribs. I want to hold it like a disappearing language saved from an ocean intent on churning all sense to glittering sand.
This poem first appeared in The Kenyon Review (2024).
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Kelly Houle’s poetry has been published in CALYX, Crab Orchard Review, Kenyon Review, Radar Poetry, Sequestrum, and other publications. She has recently been named a finalist for the Fischer Prize, the Arts and Letters “Unclassifiable” contest, and the Montreal International Poetry Prize.
