A Brief Digression Concerning the Species of Clams
The endless loop of running and thinking
returns me to the beach, punctuated
by its clams. Where a stranger,
who’ll be sorry she asked,
asks me to identify what
her bucket holds (the ubiquitous horse clam)
which I commence to do…
explaining earnestly, and almost
out of breath, the virtues and pleasures
of the geoduck as compared
to her “Tresus capax”
which is mostly beer gut…
how the geoduck inhabits two worlds,
with its glistening neck stretched out on the green eel grass
of clam beds at minus tides like a long surprise,
the flesh of it all meat, and the meat
sweet to the tooth…
how a hole
carefully dug, opens into a cave
where the great clam snores
forty years or more—
a brain inside of a shell—
chairman of the small volcanoes…
exquisite to its viscera when it squirts!
And chowdered up, how the taste
delivers you new to evil
like your first kiss,
how the kiss oils
together
like a soft machine
controlling your senses.
I stopped. Seen from a distance
we could be two figures in a seascape painting
engaged in a friendly conversation
about the weather, or love.
“You have a great day,” she said.