THE EGG

I
Everything went in the car.
Slept in the car, slept
Like angels in the duned graveyards,
Being gone. A week’s meat
Spoiled, peas
Giggled in their pods: we
Stole. And then in Edgartown
I heard my insides
Roll into a crib …
Washing underwear in the Atlantic
Touched the sun’s sea
As light welled
That could devour water.
After Edgartown
We went the other way.

II
Until aloft beyond
The sterilizer his enormous hands
Swarmed, carnivorous,
For prey. Beneath which,
Dripping white, stripped
Open to the wand,
I saw the lamps
Converging in his glasses.
Dramamine. You let him
Rob me. But
How long? how long?
Past cutlery I saw
My body stretching like a tear
Along the paper.

III
Always nights I feel the ocean
Biting at my life. By
Inlet, in this net
Of bays, and on. Unsafe.
And on, numb
In the bourbon ripples
Of your breath
I knot …
Across the beach the fish
Are coming in. Without skins,
Without fins, the bare
Households of their skulls
Still fixed, piling
With the other waste.
Husks, husks. Moons
Whistle in their mouths,
Through gasping mussels.
Pried flesh. And flies
Like planets, clamped shells
Clink blindly through
Veronicas of waves …
The thing
Is hatching. Look. The bones
Are bending to give way.
It’s dark. It’s dark.
He’s brought a bowl to catch
The pieces of the baby.