The Molt

I am not the creature but the shell.
I am not hiding but the space to hide,
the sturdy walls around a place to dwell.

At first my structure is a citadel—
the creature’s safest when it stays inside.
I am not the creature but the shell,

yet as the creature grows, its needs compel
a sloughing off—my flaws are magnified.
My sturdy walls surround a place to dwell

but trapped inside this small a space is hell.
The creature leaves. The shell’s unoccupied.
I am not the creature but the shell,

useless as when the clapper leaves the bell,
water the well. With nothing to provide,
my walls surround an empty place. I dwell

on whorling echoes, of nothing left to tell,
of no one left who ever laughed or cried.
I am not the creature but the shell,
the sturdy walls around a place to dwell.