in their haste
footsteps send the
back stairs shuddering

filthy fingerprints
trailing up the faucet

silt swirling from my findings
sea-soaked sand and pebbles
like tidal patterns
in the basin

determined,
the next day found me toiling away again
at the yellow sink,
crown of my head
barely appearing in the bottom of the oval mirror

failing to notice
the monotony of brown and white shells,
gritty and cracked
like cheap porcelain

nor registering the fact
that I had made homeless
an unfortunate number of crustaceans

and so I kept at it,
filling old containers
with the worn things, those
endeared, abused,
flawed forms of
my treasures.