The Wishing Shell Poem by Andrew Dabar

n my dream
I see them standing there
Two little girls
Ocean pearls
The sunshine air is drying their hair
A long, straightened strand
Pasted with salt to shoulders bare
Lovely, summer-tanned
Drops of sea glisten
Like tears on their cheeks
The two children listen
Neither one speaks
Intimately close to a conch shell
As to a friend with secrets to tell

In my dream
I am longing to hear
A single word
Seldom heard
As waves crash near those daughters so dear
On hourglass sand
Their playful footprints disappear
Too late understand
The melancholy sighs
Of an empty house
The unforeseen goodbyes
A long-gone spouse
I rush to the shell, whisper a wish
Hear the reply: a sorrowful sssshh
________________
Andrew Dabar