Saturday, July 6, 2013

A Green Crab's Shell : Poem In Your Post

Not, exactly, green:
closer to bronze
preserved in kind brine,

something retrieved
from a Greco-Roman wreck,
patinated and oddly

muscular. We cannot
know what his fantastic
legs were like—

though evidence
suggests eight
complexly folded

scuttling works
of armament, crowned
by the foreclaws'

gesture of menace
and power. A gull's
gobbled the center,

leaving this chamber
--size of a demitasse—
open to reveal

a shocking, Giotto blue.
Though it smells
of seaweed and ruin,

this little traveling case
comes with such lavish lining!
Imagine breathing

surrounded by
the brilliant rinse
of summer's firmament.

What color is
the underside of skin?
Not so bad, to die,

if we could be opened
into this—
if the smallest chambers

of ourselves,
similarly,
revealed some sky.

                        - Mark Doty

Yes, it's double Doty month.  Enjoy this breath of the fleeting summer and I'll see you next week.

MFB at the beach,
L

p.s.  Find more of this fine poet-essayist-memoirist's work at his website: http://markdoty.org 

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...