It Began with The Lobsters

To Louise, they looked like children
pressed to the school bus windows
clamoring, climbing over one another.
She had the clerk at the fish counter
lift them all out of the furry water
into three cardboard boxes,
with breathing holes. Later, she
released them to the pond behind her lot,
then hummed back inside for a bite of lunch-
tuna on rye. Rev. Williams came
to call hearing she'd been first to see
all the shattered glass, the broad yellow
smear on the guard rail, textbooks
in the gravel. He found Louise inside
an igloo made entirely of Birdseye boxes
of frozen vegetables. We all have
our little fascinations, was all she said.
Real concern came when Marvel,
from next door, dropped by for tea.
Louise had draped her kitchen table
in oilcloth and was positioning cuts
of beef: sirloin, rump, flank and brisket
from the A & P, into the shape of the butcher's
diagram in the Better Homes and Garden's
Cookbook. It's just like a puzzle,
Louise told Marvel. Except, it bleeds.


Marion Boyer