Said the woman (who stands by the bay) to the man (who is watching her)

This pale seahorse of a shadow-
below all these silly euphemisms for epiphanies,
how quietly you seem to study me
and form an opinion based upon the way I dress and act.
As if tongues are there to taste.
As if animation fills a face.

I close my fingers around a seashell.
If you were to pry them open and crush it
then all might be well.

Shriram Sivaramakrishnan
nice poem...