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