"Skin for Water" by Susan Solomon
Elegy (for the Mussels)
The fish-market lady says mussels are simple,
easy, and I should know them slouched on ice.
In bags on my counter they hold together, some
shy, some yawning at me. I sift instructions:
palm them, water them, run them clean within
ridges of growth lines on their black backs. Moles
of moss, a sea I didn’t believe I’d be afraid to wash
from their beaks. They become a song I work soft
across their bodies, wait for the hum crest of a violin.
They shine out of the corner of my eye. I’m cautious
everywhere. Those opaque teeth, ridges they slip
out from the open slit of their shells. They reach
for food like this, wince at my touch. Holding
tight: a tug of war. Thread of seaweed, their beards,
I yank for last. This kills them, makes me want
to be their anchored rock, their crawl home
in a high tide cusp. God oh god I want to save
them. Want to eat them now. I sink to connect
to a rock, a body, me. There are two who still
their mouths, measured to close any second.
It’s timing, waiting for them to give up, easy.
The fish-market lady says mussels are simple,
easy, and I should know them slouched on ice.
In bags on my counter they hold together, some
shy, some yawning at me. I sift instructions:
palm them, water them, run them clean within
ridges of growth lines on their black backs. Moles
of moss, a sea I didn’t believe I’d be afraid to wash
from their beaks. They become a song I work soft
across their bodies, wait for the hum crest of a violin.
They shine out of the corner of my eye. I’m cautious
everywhere. Those opaque teeth, ridges they slip
out from the open slit of their shells. They reach
for food like this, wince at my touch. Holding
tight: a tug of war. Thread of seaweed, their beards,
I yank for last. This kills them, makes me want
to be their anchored rock, their crawl home
in a high tide cusp. God oh god I want to save
them. Want to eat them now. I sink to connect
to a rock, a body, me. There are two who still
their mouths, measured to close any second.
It’s timing, waiting for them to give up, easy.
Ash Goedker is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Idaho. Most of her poetry is about living in the Upper Midwest, where she was born and raised. Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are all states that she wants to energize using literary cartography in her poems. She has a number of obsessions besides poems, and they can be whittled down to a very simple list: lakes and cheese. Ash would say lakes make more appearances in her poetry than cheese does, but she is not opposed to cheese in poems.
Susan Solomon is a freelance painter living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She also edits and cartoons Sleet Magazine, an online literary journal. Susan was recently laid off from her medical office job after 11 years and is now happily painting full time. She is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the same school that claims David Lynch as an alumni. To view more paintings, please visit www.susansolomonpainter.com
