Each night I walk along the curving shore
behind my house, hands eager to grasp
at small, meandering crabs drawn like war
to thoughts of easy food. They softly rasp
the sand, antennae out, prepared to bore
into small worms, who can't even gasp
as death uncoils under their skins, surprised
and then discarded: used, but not despised.
Held from behind, their claws fail, though they try
to attack, with quick serrated scythes dyed
with blood from past meals. I know that hunger -
I know the way my tongue mimics them, scarred
by my need to gorge until filled with flesh.
With shells like Gothic castles under stars
fading by sunrise, they keep weapons meshed
against skin, ready for siege. It is hard
to understand their lives, each step a fresh
start, hunting the gifts of translucent tides
with goals they cannot know, though glad to ride.
Nightly, crabs spread legs dried by winds that linger,
and shudder free of evening's tired fingers.
They plunge into their depth, freer than I am.
How relentlessly high tide comes and goes!
It brought you to me, and sucked at our toes.
Tonight I see your ghostly reflection
carried on the crests. Love is dissection,
the slicing of the heart's inner chambers.
When they dropped, it left you and I strangers.
My sense is that the light of day is not
for wasting. Even now this beach I cross
peels into ebon rind and pulp, its rot
marking the boundary of time, embossed
by kelp tangles. I still dream, body hot
with memories of the roving touch I lost.
Your wings of rope and canvas steer you out,
leaving me in fog, crusted with my doubts.
Tonight, like every other night, is truce:
the day's soft laurel wreath becomes a noose
draped firm around my neck, its fibers twisting.
