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Shells and Bones by Maggie Helwig   There is no one to speak to. By the side of the road thick water, a bowl of heat. And the great fish dead, their creamy skulls breaking out of the flesh. The kingdom of shells and bones. A woman throws back her head.  The curve of her throat in the morning. Each moment  the world's first border, edge of the sea, of waves precise beyond voice.  And these yellow roses dying, unremarkable, their smell of green and sugar in the air. Hand turns. Is turning in wind. There may be a mountain. At the border a mountain, not always. But there may.  The curving flesh of the rocks cut through by road. Walking beside a road we may understand loss. As if egg-white and pulsar. We will not fall to the road. We will not fall again. The roses, red at their edge like a spot of            blood. The gentle burn of belief, trees shocked into crimson. The air breaks, and history begins. The           means by which we harm each other. A wind blows through the world, the lift of this woman's head.

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