Pan-Roasted Lobster with Bay Leaf
by Mary Soon Lee
How would it have been?
 
The lobsters waving their antennae
from within their watery shelter,
while she, seven years old,
assessed the size of their tails,
seeking the largest, finest specimens;
and then, on the journey home,
the clicking of claws inside the box,
the car smelling like the fish market;
and, once home, her piercing squeal
as the lobster's legs and swimmerets
wiggled against her hand
and she yanked the tail
from the living thing
and held, for one stunned moment,
two separate pieces of a creature
as far beyond mending
as Humpty Dumpty.
 
But no, I denied her that moment,
(despite her insistence
that she would like -- really like --
really like -- to get live lobsters
and remove the tails herself)
and bought five tails, pre-severed,
stationary on a bed of ice;
and she stood by the kitchen sink,
a lobster tail in her hands,
curling and uncurling the shell,
segments articulating in her grasp
as, her eyes afire with what delight,
what Darwinian daughter's fascination
with discovery, difference, dissection?
this bold and brave and eager person
of seven years of age declared
"This is the best day of my life."

(First published in the Evansville Review)
 

Forums: 
New Poems