Tuesday Poem: previously appeared in The Syracuse Record in 2003

Ode to the Moon Snail

Unlikely predator!

In that gleaming whorled shell,

its spiraled white 

setting tide pools alight,

agleam. O dance.

O trance of hungry 

chalky nebula!

O languorous taster,

with full and flexible 
tongue extended 
in a sensual 

narrowing gyre.

O unsuspecting quahog

stuck in sea bed mire!

What salty tide is this 

that turns seduction fierce 

enough to mount and pierce 

such horny shell ?

How does such glistening 

undulant meat

harden into drill bit ?

Purity of clammy 
darkness, suddenly 
inhabited by two.

What's a clam to do?

Ravished by the moon itself.

O secret wooings!

Delicious liquefaction!

Tuesday Poem: Previously published by Calyx in 1987

Painting by Francien Krieg

 

Linda

As I passed the door of her room,

I had to rub my eyes.

Her pink nipples and pale 
rise of china breasts

looked new as a young girl's

beneath the wrinkles of her face.

Old age rustled like wind on sand

in the Swancott Home for Ladies,
and she reclined oblivious,

an odalisque on a narrow bed

in coral and porcelain autumn light.

A gift of late blooming roses,

ashimmer over shifting dunes.

A mirage? No, an oasis in this 
barren, stoop-shouldered place.