I’m walking in the city with my lobster pal.
Ragged Claws (after T.S.) always draws
bemused stares, and an occasional passerby
will stop to ask why he’s green instead of red.
This upsets the poor creature to no end.
He blanches to think of friends and acquaintances
who’ve been broken, buttered and consumed.
Bad enough to live one’s life skulking for garbage
on the ocean floor. But to be hunted, scalded, eaten,
was a fate no creature deserved. He calls all humans
"Quasi’s," for Laughton’s magnificent boiling weaponry.
We stop at the occasional store window,
move quickly by pet shops and restaurants,
proceeding toward the Museum of Natural History,
where he’s pledged a shift to protest the new exhibit,
"The History of Deep Sea Fishing in New England."
After that, we’ll get takeout Chinese and head home.
And tonight, again, I will try to extract his d.n.a.
in my fervent attempt to grow a claw of my own,
following my lifelong dream of a career in the WWF.
I’ll call myself Super Snapper, and no hissing sheik,
six-hundred pound farm boy or dog faced muscleman
will withstand the power of my terrible shell.
I envision a red cape, a hood with tentacles,
and, in the corner, my crustacean friend,
egging me on with the frantic wavings
of his own viselike appendages.