Can’t you hear the Atlantic?
little Shelly asks,
handing it to me
as if in turn, a pearl
that’s found beneath,
the odds of one-in-three,
the triptych of a guess.
I say I hear the traffic,
the road rage of the freeway,
the citiot on his jet skies
drowning waves. I’d set
a bad example if I lied,
feign I’m hard of hearing.
It’s not far
till there’s another, a crack
that runs along it like a
fault, a scar
from the shaking
of the earth. Her lips begin
to part as if some Moses
gave command,
used some driftwood
as a staff. Her teeth will
gleam in the spot-
light of the sun, stop-
ping me in my steps.
She tells me that she
hears it once again—
this one’s the Pacific!
adding that there’s whale-
songs in the spiral,
that she knows they are
in love.
When my turn to listen
comes, there isn’t a single
sound but for the gulls
above our heads. Squabbling
over food.
Before we find the third,
she’ll urge me to believe,
like wishing on the evening
star, that I should twist my
tongue around, envision
we’ll be rich
while she sells these ghostly
mollusks on the shore,
make enough
to buy a boat,
christen it after mother,
sail against the winds
that one day swept her
off her feet, her kerchief
waving madly like a flag.
Andreas Gripp
February 17, 2025
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