Starfish

All night my mind full of starfish, their bodies a shock of salmon-y red, their bodies succulent hands and splayed fingers, holding on to the craggy rocks amid the ebb and swirl of seawater, their bodies still as compasses pointing to the five directions, there, there, there, there, there, each direction an option, each direction a million options, each body a centering, a breathing knot, a silent mouth saying, here.

Theses days are so damn hard, and sometimes lonely. The person you love is not the person you once loved. I see now how a slow dying is a leaden migration, as if into the coiled chambers of a conch or an ordinary whelk, inward, inward. You call into the hollowness of the shell, but no voice responds anymore. You lift the shell to your ear, and it offers only, hushshshshshshsh.

I want to step into that green water, let the ribbons of golden kelp wash my back, be that brave brilliance, perhaps someone from the pier, pointing, “Isn’t she beautiful?”

Would I hear that?
Would I believe that?
Would I answer?