like toenail clippings from the sea

I found her seashells, the shells from Cozumel in the drawer today while I was cleaning: they are part of a future that won’t exist, a shared past that was lived and their collection was predicated on a history that won’t be made, on an idea that is dead. Because they were gathered in a time where something was alive they were part of that life and intended to be used to further that life but that life is dead, has died, so now they are nothing but calcium. They are stones gathered by a girl a long time ago for some purpose that no longer exists. They are a strange thing in a desk drawer that must probably be thrown in a dumpster: these things each one selected over another, each one chosen, each one part of the greater plan. Look at the table: before it was bought to suit a life, to be service to a life that is dead now. So it is just wood. It is an object. The life that was injected into it has been removed. It is hard to say if the table is dead. Does it still possess the memory of its life of service? Are the imprints part of the finish? The faith that we had in the table, the way we saw it, the people who touched it will never be together again; the table will no longer be in the same sight. It is now consigned to wait, to see if it will live again in service to another life. The shells have less life than furniture. They have no use to anyone anymore where the table may live again. The shells were a personal choice, each one selected specifically, each one embraced into a life that no longer exists. They are less than orphans now.