As with Heaney: thumb and forefinger
levered against shell, straining
to discover its lines of weakness.
 
A jagged rift running between dome
and phalange, pried suddenly open
to unveil latticed white muscle beneath.
 
Or perhaps like Bidart in his taste for
an all-consuming love of the particular.
The messy act of putting mouth
 
to pepper-flecked carapace, supping
on a brine that stains the fingers and
the laundered collar. I tongue
 
for morsels blindly, seeking slivers
within the legs, massy lumps at the base
of the largest claw. Reedy hunger, why
 
do you range with your eye at the slat?
I sense you and I grip harder, feeling
the torsion, the oncoming snap.