Parallax

 

Parallax—

 

            a phenomenon of viewing the same thing

            from different angles.

 

--for Taegre

 

Cook lobster in its own water.

And the mollusk.  Clam and oyster

 

or mussel or the odd handful

of periwinkle.  A fist of rockweed.

 

All pried from their perch.  Or dug.

Or baited & trapped.  Lifted to

 

bald air, whatever the weather. 

Measured & kept,

 

measured & tossed back measured

depending on the scruple

 

of the procuring hand & the eye.  Depending

on who is coming to

 

the beach feast.  The deep

pit in the sand, brick lined, is a heat

 

holder.  The coals are cold

covered with snow from October

 

through April, some years May,

though there have been times,

 

remember? there have been

times when the only way we could keep you

 

alive after you’d gone (you were gone so

so suddenly)

 

was to grope for that hold

& heave out the snow

 

 

& bring the dry daily

news & the slow burning hard woods

 

& the catch of the day,

break the ice at the edge of the beach

 

& haul the water up to the tidemark

& watch it all come to

 

boil while all us living

            hold our own

 

            bowl of lobsters groping for a solid

            something & tight lipped mollusks

 

            and a smattering

            of snails yet in their houses

 

& wait to pour them into the canner

of the boiling salt sea

 

wait for it to steam

wait for them to be drawn into and then out of

 

wait for them               to cool             to cool             to cool

            so that we may

 

 

eat