carcinization

Crawling through moss and the lush, foamy scum
are cockles and razor clams
with shattered, stricken shells
    Minion
    Domicile
This is my creeping algae, my mud snails
Slipping in quietly on a gelatinous, ebbing tide

I eat sandworms
I catch them burrowing deep
Snatched, stretched taut until they snap in half
Writhing
Silent

I am alive in these gritty fragments and this wet,
sucking mud
Dead bony plate
Flat, pale armor
I know these wriggling fish, these sculpin
and sanddab
Riddles and riddles in the dark
I want to sleep
I want to walk
Head up
Chest at all
Eyes turned toward the light

But it is deep here
Instead I scuttle
A goblin
An error, cosmicomic,
Repeating
Repeating
Repeating
Repeating

I pick my way along the shore
With broken screws and styrofoam
They have hats here
And wampum