A Green Crab's Shell


Not, exactly, green:
Closer to bronze
Preserved in kind brine,

Something retrieved
From a Greco-Roman wreck,
Patinated and oddly

Muscular. We cannot
Know what his fantastic
Legs were like

Though evidence
Suggests eight
Complexly folded

Scuttling works
Of armament, crowned
By the foreclaws’

Gesture of menace
And power. A gull’s
Gobbled the center,

Leaving this chamber
size of a demitasse
Open to reveal

A shocking, Giotto blue.
Though it smells
Of seaweed and ruin,

This little traveling case
Comes with such lavish lining!
Imagine breathing

Surrounded by
The brilliant rinse
Of summer’s firmament.

What color is
The underside of skin?
Not so bad, to die,

If we could be opened
Into this
If the smallest chambers

Of ourselves,
Similarly,
Revealed some sky.


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A Green Crab's Shell