Live oysters & oyster shell ring
the barrier islands, dark & white oases
in 350,000 square miles of spartina
nourishing the marsh by photosynthesis.
Blue & stone crabs sidle, pelicans glide
then preen on dock posts & channel markers.
Laughing gulls reconnoiter barks & cries
of orange-billed skimmers & oystercatchers.
Every knobbed or lightning, pear or channeled
whelk — the liquid body housed in calcium
carbonate excreted from its mantle —
imperceptibly stalks an open clam,
intrudes its shell’s lip & radula — toothed
chitinous ribbon — tender flesh it chews.
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