Slippery

The hinge, crusted with mud,
resists your effort,
so you twist and saw,
cutting through the crack,
turning a line into
a mouth helplessly opening.
You pry the shells apart
to show gray flesh
glistening in its sea water
and you pass it to  me.
I tip the bed and slide
the cold body onto my tongue––
like the afterbirth
of a mermaid: salty,
so mellifluous that I
swallow it whole.
It’s your turn now,
but you forget and hand me
another, bigger one,
its slither even sweeter.

Selected by poet Merrill Leffler for display on a metal poster as part of the city of Takoma Park, Maryland’s annual “Spring into Poetry” outdoor exhibition in 2016.