The Relic
It looked like a bleached tongue
pulled from a mouth,
petrified and incapable
now of letting a word slide over
its calcified silence.
I picked it out of the wet sand
and held it in my hand.
It had little weight, smooth
on one side and pitted
on the other. A cuttlefish bone.
It was a marvel of engineering.
My fingers followed its shape,
took in its texture, the pleasurable
feel of its form. I lifted it to my nose
and smelt its salty, faintly fishy
odor, sea washed to a clean
unsullied smell. It had undergone
a change into something
beyond life, into an artifact of time.
I kept it cradled in my hands,
held it like a sacred relic.
I have seen them too
shrink wrapped in plastic bags
on the end of supermarket shelves,
a calcium supplement for birds
to be hung on a hook
inside of a cage.
They were selling for $2.50
or thereabouts.
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