Lullaby to Myself

Baby, I’ll tell you

some secrets about conch shells.

When they’re born they’re black

and tiny as pinheads, rubber-soft.

They’re packed

like so many children together

into seats of a ferris wheel, tumbling,

and 30-40 wheels

come stacked together

like gray-tan coins,

vertebrae stuck together at one edge,

round sausage slices

not quite cut through. 

They grow so fast, the tiny conchs,

and get so hard and big

they break out of their package

and swim off on their own,

now chalky white and beautiful.

They grow so huge

they roll the sound of the ocean

thundering in their deep dark throats! 

But the part that spirals around

bigger and bigger

is always the smooth pink singing lips

you hold to your shell-pink ear

to hear the sea roaring its song of blood. 

The other end, tight and tiny,

is the same old baby end;

and the point at that first end of the shell

is how big it was when it was born.

© Tamara Rasmussen 2018