As a boy, I stood in drowned sneakers
and held up to the sun a crayfish
between my thumb and forefinger,
just plucked from the creek,
its pincers gyrating and pinching air,
trying to reach back far enough
to scissor skin and win release
from pain by pain. Win release
from pain by pain. Even in the dark places
under stones in creeks, whatever stones,
whatever other kingdoms, this immutable
is known. The dark imbricated plates
of her body were soft bronze. She knew me
enough. She’d treat any animal the same
and be blameless, not dwell as we do
after we use our natural defenses
to return to where we can breathe.
I’d call a friend over to see tiny dark eggs
she strummed under her body’s shields,
then drop her for the pleasure of seeing
that tiny splash, the dark zing backwards
into her watermind. She’d flex her entire body
and her big scoop tail would shoot water
through water as she flew to the safe
underplace. Each language, its dark, protective stones.
I am not a boy. I no longer lift
the roofs of stones from creatures.
Let dwell, let dwell.
Time is water and we must breathe under it.
Each in the darkness it calls home.
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