The Lobster
By Carl Rakosi
Eastern Sea, 100 fathoms,
green sand, pebbles,
broken shells.
Off Suno Saki, 60 fathoms,
gray sand, pebbles,
bubbles rising.
Plasma-bearer
and slow-
motion benthos!
The fishery vessel Ion
drops anchor here
collecting
plankton smears and fauna.
Plasma-bearer, visible
sea purge,
sponge and kelpleaf.
Halicystus the Sea Bottle
resembles emeralds
and is the largest
cell in the world.
Young sea horse
Hippocampus twenty
minutes old,
nobody has ever
seen this marine
freak blink.
It radiates on
terminal vertebra
a comb of twenty
upright spines
and curls
its rocky tail.
Saltflush lobster
bull encrusted swims
backwards from the rock.
Copyright Credit: Carl Rakosi, “The Lobster” from The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi (Orono: The National Poetry Foundation, 1986). Used with the permission of Marilyn J. Kane.
Source: The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi (National Poetry Foundation, 1986)