The oyster was there when we slipped
under the groove of the bedrock,
molded our bodies together to fit
through windows of stone cathedrals
hallowed and ashen in the dust
We grinned at each other from beneath
the foamy underbelly of the sea, sand
gritted under our arms and coating the curves
of our ankles, rubbery and soft from
The current caressing
We knew hunger well enough
to snatch the shell away before it
snapped, to clamp our mouths
onto the soft, fleshy ear
and taste the sharpness of the sea
To love it is a mystery:
the oyster, chained to the seabed,
spat and cursed and wailed
for us to change our minds
as we searched for the aftermath
Of a dream in which the oyster
grew teeth to chew tenderly
on the thickness of our thighs,
unraveling the coarse ropes of flesh
and left wanting for more
A reckoning, pooled under our
tongues pebbled with sores and
scraping against the shells of ours mouths,
etched with teeth marks that ached
not unlike hunger
In that we needed something unwanted
to prove we were what the other wanted,
quietly ripening inside the sound of waves
within waves of mirrors fracturing
into mirrors
When we look up, pearls
keening in our mouths,
we will have known the mollusk
long enough to call it a sinner and left
without a vessel for weeping.
