1.
She collects seashells, three in a row. One domed, a Buddhist stupa; another hugs the ground, an earthworm after spring rain, seeking damp earth to nuzzle. The third is halved, amputated, an orange tongue searching a mate.
A shell on land is life made nomad, seeking home.
She wants to live again in that house on stilts, taste the sharpness of anchovies dried on bamboo vines.
2
His pursuit of her, once, had thrummed like sleeplessness within the covers of a great book.
He is a purveyor of words, chipping at monuments, stupas of the ancients swarm his brain. Her needs tire him. The small talk, he is afraid of hours wasted, knowledge of giants undecoded.
A memory of wild hair, evenings satiny and humid. She comes from a land where women stand over rice pots, incanting the moon.
He looks at her crouched, collecting seashells, and sees. The bend of her neck lifting, marking the way home.