At low tide we found a lobster
shell scorched on the rocks,
which recalled a story from my childhood
about a couple from Maine
who sent a tub of lobsters to Oklahoma
and after months without a thank you
learned their friends had been
embarrassed to tell them
the lobsters arrived green
and were thrown away. I don’t mention this
as allegory for our inability
to recognize gifts when given to us:
I know we can
and we can’t. It’s not about ignorance,
either. The truth is
I don’t know what it is—this memory
waiting for me on the beach
every time some empty carapace
washes up—except food
for the need to tell my children
something.
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