Not, exactly, green: <br />closer to bronze <br />preserved in kind brine, <br /> <br />something retrieved <br />from a Greco-Roman wreck, <br />patinated and oddly <br /> <br />muscular. We cannot <br />know what his fantastic <br />legs were like-- <br /> <br />though evidence <br />suggests eight <br />complexly folded <br /> <br />scuttling works <br />of armament, crowned <br />by the foreclaws' <br /> <br />gesture of menace <br />and power. A gull's <br />gobbled the center, <br /> <br />leaving this chamber <br />--size of a demitasse-- <br />open to reveal <br /> <br />a shocking, Giotto blue. <br />Though it smells <br />of seaweed and ruin, <br /> <br />this little traveling case <br />comes with such lavish lining! <br />Imagine breathing <br /> <br />surrounded by <br />the brilliant rinse <br />of summer's firmament. <br /> <br />What color is <br />the underside of skin? <br />Not so bad, to die, <br /> <br />if we could be opened <br />into this-- <br />if the smallest chambers <br /> <br />of ourselves, <br />similarly, <br />revealed some sky.<br /><br />Mark Doty<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-green-crab-s-shell/
