CRABS
Mallets in hand, we’d crack
their claws, snap off their legs
like twigs, suck seasoned flesh
through clenched teeth, the sweet
carnage of their broken bodies
littering table and floor
thin plastic aprons
fastened at our necks.
The females wore aprons, too.
You’d peel them back, and with a knife
scrape out the bitter mustard
then savor her meat, her eyes
two dead rubies adorning her
shell, refusing to look away.
Marc Alan Di Martino is author of the poetry collection Unburial (Kelsay Books, 2019). His work appears in Rattle, Rivet Journal, Baltimore Review, Palette Poetry and many other journals, as well as the anthologies Unsheathed: 24 Contemporary Poets Take Up the Knife (Kingly Street Press, 2019) and What Remains: The Many Ways We Say Goodbye (Gelles-Cole, 2019). He currently lives in Perugia, Italy with his family where he works as a teacher and translator.
