Tozier, Christopher

English

eGrove (Univ. of Mississippi)

Yalobusha Review Volume 15 Article 34 5-1-2010 The Shell Mall Christopher Tozier Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/yr Recommended Citation Tozier, Christopher (2010) "The Shell Mall," Yalobusha Review: Vol. 15 , Article 34. Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/yr/vol15/iss1/34 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the English at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Yalobusha Review by an authorized editor of eGrove. For more information, please contact egrove@olemiss.edu. Yalobusha ReviewChristopher TozierThe Shell MallFort Myers, Florida, 1977From the rubbish outside, I pocket the interior slick pink twist of a conch shell, its mathematical impossibility rubbed down to mere equation, now thrown out for its imperfection. The heart must be made of thisenameled glass, this flawed concentricity.Inside, hundreds of old women with hats pick through bins of dried pufferfish, expensive red angel wings, cool moonshells, augers, netrites, cowries and deadly fire cones; the soft animals knifed through and scooped back to the Indonesian water, stripped entirely of their art.It must be done this way, cruelly, or else the shoppers must accept the surf-pounded edges and the bored suck-holes from predators, the cracks, the dun finish that comes from being humane.Only by pulling life too soon from its quick pearly spirals, do we allow its perfection, opal throats, aubergines, favriles, some little thing after death that remains remarkable.115 ■1Tozier: The Shell MallPublished by eGrove, 2010

The Shell Mall

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1795&context=yr

The Shell Mall

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