The Magnetic Mollusk
When I have water
on my mind—a minor
tide—
but in my narrow thought
find Greenland
wedged—along with
other continents that bend their
land
around the polar cap, that
icy snout—I say
Wrong turn! This poem
needs to liquify, to have the
drip of oceans, and those sometimes
secretive or gargoyle wonders,
who breathing, drown
in them
Like the slug, the snail,
mussel oyster clam, the whelk
or limpet—cuttlefish,
no none of these, it is
the chiton
I must swim with
The little darling with a foot
that shocks, it grows
high kicker from
abdominal—and helps
the sweet thing
creep; or dig; it helps it
Swim. And what is magnet
and magnificent and in
ferocious row, are its
small teeth: alive
with magnetite—which,
after their minute planktonic
nighttime gorge, a farflung
famished foraging—returns
with swollen stomach
to that selfsame
spot, the millimetered hearth-rock
that it started from,
this magnet’s
HUGE. And the world did taste
like honey
when I learned
of it