after Sharon Olds

We fished with lines, not nets.

My father came home once

and put two shells in my hand.

Crabs poked their eyes out, watching

to see what I would do. My mother chose

crabs at the market. Grey-green armour,

impenetrable. The crabs would sit in a basin

on the floor of the laundry while my mother

pounded spices. I once filled the tub

with water. I’d thought they might drown.

In the sink, my mother would push aside

their legs, locate their underside flaps

and stab them with the pointed end

of a chopstick. I’d read that you could kill

by placing crabs in the freezer. A slow,

painless death. It was my task to unwrap

the string from the dead ones. My father would

prise off their top shells, remove the gills,

and rinse out the guts. My mother would quarter

each with a cleaver. When the crabs arrived

at the table, swimming in sauce, my father

would reassemble his. Lift the carapace.

I liked breaking off the legs, snapping the joints

and easing out the flesh in one intact sliver.

Biting the meat off the cartilage in a single

pull. I left the claws to the others,

preferring only what I could mine

through my own precise undoings.

Read the rest of Overland 228

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