Who doesn't love a small kingdom?
The lion has her pride, the mole
her starnosed tunnel. My mother
grows three kinds of basil, and I
collect movie stubs in a box marked
Memories. A whelk knows only
the golden ratio of its chambers,
its figure 8 of nerve endings -
drawbridge, mantle, moat ocean.
Washed up, its perfect enclosure
reeks of salt. I sort by color.
I file by coast. I know a man
by the cans and coffee cups
he leaves in his car, the thick
puppy mess of him. Who doesn't
dream of cleaning out her small
kingdom, tilting the whole stable
on its Augean edge? Who doesn't love
the disaster of her own making?
Boy, give up your slow reach
before I try to fix your life, before
I let your shell jangle to dust
in my pocket, before I burn
your operculum gate for incense.
I don't know how to keep you
without killing you a little - the way
my mother pares down the rosemary
each year to keep its flavor bright.
The way we must make all our loves smaller
before they can enter our kingdom.