Kaylor Jones

Crabstick

Tonight, I’m in Croatia, eating the best 

seafood pasta anyone has ever 

cried into. There was no salt here 

until the people cried. They did not cry 

until the ocean unzipped itself. 

On this globe are uncountable 

little people experiencing 

their uncountable little disasters: 

A tugboat engineer falls from a great

height and breaks his wrist. The doctor 

knew all along that the baby was 

a shrimp and didn’t tell the mother, 

who will never forgive him for this. 

In the varnished sea, the women 

hold their sun-stirred bellies, 

the men their neoprene codpieces.

We grow shells. We go swimming.