Lobster Shells

This bowl of lobster shells  looks very pretty and yet so sad. The bright red carcasses  all cracked and emptied out have served me well with their luscious innards of tender sweet flesh unctuous with brine and butter that sated me and gratified  my deep-sea desires for this ultimate New England joyance on this muggy Summer day. If I had any ambition left, I'd dump these scarlet remnants into a big ol' pot and toss in onions, bay leaves and peppercorns for a savory perfumed stock. But for now I'm glued to my chair happily lobster drunk and in a buttery haze and licking my salty fingers  for any last residue of that resplendent crustacean now reduced  to a heap of shells in an old glazed bowl on a lemon-yellow afternoon somewhere on the coast wondering how long I can last until the feeling comes again and I don my old stained bib and haul out  the nutcracker and pick and get the butter drawn for another Homarus americanus  adventure and find myself staring down a new warm mound of cracked and emptied lobster shells.