Island in My Chest

There used to be an island in my chest.
With sandy dunes that shifted
shape in the wind,
with birds calling out to one another
in the sweetness of summer,
with gentle shores that lapped up
the eager arrival of salted waves.
There were storms and solitude,
breath and beauty,
and somewhere, hidden in the roots
of the oldest tree,
lay all secrets of the world.
Now, the earth has sunk beneath the surface,
swallowed by memory, overgrown
with washed up silence.
There are no more secrets,
there is no more beauty,
only muted voices echoing through the air
of what was once rumored
to fill the floating space long ago.