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Sorting Shells on Sanibel
for Elizabeth L.
Once, sorting
shells on Sanibel Island, my friend
directed me to what she had kept: bushels and bushels
of lightning
whelks and rooster conchs, all
of what she'd plucked from the warm water
following the hurricanes. She tasked me: I was
used
to the dried brine by then:
pickled- a
poor man’s
escargot
the muscle
of
the
salted dead.
And that one day I remember tipping
one basket over and as soon
as they spilled
over the sunhot, frayed blue tarp,
the roaches rushed and rushed and rushed
they
rushed
rushed and rushed.
As quick as that, lizards
flew! (I’m from Maine, and
we just don’t see this!)
So! Yes,
And so invisible, watching me, waiting on
me, from the palmetto palms they feasted!
and seemed
to swoop,
to swarm,
to scoop them up.
And that was that. My goodness,
all those suddenly gone lozenges,
those "hermit" roaches loosing
their second carapaces. It was incredible.
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