The Conch

Poetry by Pauline Bissell

Knuckling under
the pressure of your left ear 
    in the space where my ribs splay,
I feel you hold still.
         We both know it,
curled on your side against me, 
like a comma,
you’re listening
to my heart beat, you say,
         and I ease into your weight in the dark and feel you feel
             this pulse that has never yet ceased.
I imagine that you are instead hearing 
the solemn strokes of a knell 
in my chest,
your eyes squeezing shut, 
        driving out any frail glimmers of light,
                   to pretend that maybe the steady pounding of my heart
is actually the sound of victory bells
        roaring on,
in a resolute, unwavering ovation, 
on and on, ricocheting
        off each rib.
I imagine you listening
to my body buzzing with its own applause. 

But maybe we are nothing like that at all.
as I lie there trying
not to disrupt the iambs in your ears,
I think that perhaps we are nothing more
than a child with their ear pressed in the satin curve of a shell
listening to a tide that has never ebbed and flowed
hearing a sea where there is nothing more than blood pumping
        where, on the other side,
        there is nothing living at all.

About the Author:

Pauline Bissell is a sophomore English major at Amherst College. She is from Los Angeles. 

You may also like…

No Worry

No Worry

By Dan Lu No worry about money. No need  for ask. Mama ai ni      Mama say  do your homework before bed,   Mama tuck you in at night, Mama  cross an ocean for you      the salt   is in your blood      feel the sting in  your flesh    the fracture in your   bones   ...

Villa Camillus

Villa Camillus

By Peyton Bender Grandma is small like me.   Nestled into her faded flowered   sheets, huddled into a pillow-fort   coffin, her wrinkled eyelids     blanket her eyes; her lips  do not greet me with a smile  today. She breathes like my   cabbage patch doll—so subtly  ...

When You Wish upon a Radio Tower

When You Wish upon a Radio Tower

By Melody Dunn Alrighty, how should I start?   “From the start, I suppose. Maybe give the world your motive first.”   Motive? Hm …   Well, I have eight siblings. I haven’t seen seven of them in 13 years, after we all left home to strike out on our own and try a chance...