Nacre's Embrace from Grain to Gleam: A Story of Quiet Revenge
Sand only looked to alight,
find some alone-time in the muck
no fuss was meant, it is only a space
as big as a grain taken, escaping its identical
brethren of billions on the sea floor.
Oyster only opened his rigid
lips to rinse, to breathe the brine,
to move a snack through his labial palps
in private, when a tiny intruder, unwelcome,
unbidden, disturbs the digestion,
initiates the unintended consequence
of oyster's defensive reaction.
Called upon, mitigation arrives over time.
Nacre warriors, layer by layer, smooth
sand's edges to soothe oyster's irritation,
an effort that deafens new pleas from a grain
now only looking to go home.
In the dark-churned slime, desire
emerges as a luster in the mud, a dazzling
monster named Pearl, radiant and angry, hard
with longing to be unloosed from her mucous
roots. She sends dreams as currency of streaming
shimmers, to bolster her chances of freedom
from an endless, watery night.
Lured by the glimmer, human hands pry open
shy bivalve, tongue and lips slurp up the middle
like a salty kiss, until teeth accidental onto eager Pearl
warmed by the breath.
For the indiscretion she now sits pocketed in slacks
belonging to hands with plans to pierce her spine,
string her along, then hang her on another lover's neck—
stranger to sand and pearl, already grown
wayward in closeness, is a new desire that oyster
degrade on ocean's bottom, turn into sand and join them
on the choker.
Copyright ©
Jaymee Thomas
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