Be ready for a blue crab dash
if you're drifting in the marsh.
Keep an eye out for a shadow shift,
a furtive sharpness in the dark
that seizes shape when glanced by light --
claws cocked tight in a Cajun dance,
last legs lancing, flat as blades,
jointed leaves gathering and casting away,
carapace locked in plates of white,
twirling maw in a pointed crown,
sidling on spindles and darting down.
~ 11th Street, Manhattan
And if you stay alert in town
you might make out the laundry bride.
Thin as a minnow, pale in her gown,
she drifts out from the depths inside
and comes to sip the surface air.
She likes to iron in the sun
that filters through the firestair.
She leans and folds with flickering hands,
hair lapping at her wicker chair;
her spine a nervous bamboo curve
that flexes with her slight demands.
~~~~~~~~~~
Douglas Logan
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