Buttons run through your fingers,

not-quite-sand on the West Shore,

small, cool pebbles ground by sea.

Imagine the garments, long gone,

made into dusters or given to the rag

and bone man calling down our street.

Pick some out - one a fifties beaded hat

my aunt wore going back to Nashville,

her baby son in her arms.

This the perfect bow my mother tied

into my pin-curled hair, arranging me

for the photograph.

Here is the Art Deco bathroom at our hotel,

black tiles and green bath, basin, toilet.

I can be Esther Williams.

Now the ocean beyond our window,

storm-churned, cloud edged by lightning,

mother-of-pearl moon hidden.

This one is the story‘s pink gleam,

an ammonite uncurling dreams.