You can talk down to me if you want,

and I will listen…

let my voice grow smaller and smaller until it hides in a pin prick under the sand

beneath the Conch shell you picked up, held to your ear and threw onto the back of an outgoing wave

I can’t see it anymore, can you?

Maybe someday it will end up on another beach for someone else to find

place on their coffee table

next to the bird’s eye flowers and sky lupines