a mermaid's purse

picked up by you between two fingers — small, leathered, already empty. the four corners curl back like the dried tendrils of a vine. whoever lived in it left before you were born; the small fish is now a larger fish, or it is in the belly of one.

weighs almost nothing dry. four grams. dark as a tobacco pouch and almost the same shape. nearer in spirit to a letter than to the shell a few steps away — a thing whose purpose was wholly to contain, briefly, and then to be opened.

kept on the windowsill above the sea drawer, where the wind through the gap dries it a little more each year. it is for nothing now. it is finished being for anything. read naturata beside it some evening and the case will fit the sentence.