Virgin Treasures

First published in Power Magazine (December 2025, In The Name Publishing)

Long brackish fingers reach upon the shore,

A final straining from the bubbling deep.

They bring abandoned seashells from the war

Of surging riptides without hope of sleep.

Now cast away and free from Ocean’s ghost,

They linger till new hands can search and seize

Them from the undiscovered, dampened coast.

Hear distant laughter guided by a breeze!

A gull? A youth? Unfettered feet race by

But loiter to find dormant in the dunes

These fragments of the former lullaby:

Caressed by waves descending from past moons.

Like untouched apples grown by the sublime,

These shells are sweetly plucked from sands of time.