YESTERDAY'S LOBSTER


In the mirror
she sees where a spider has crossed a web
and tied it, crossed and tied it again,
then, where the red half-shell of yesterday's
lobster fades and stiffens -- swimmerets, claws
and compound eyes on stalks forever pale
as oysters. It hangs in the old fishnet
dangling across the ceiling and walls
like a web, between fat rounds
of cork floats

and bits of abalone shell shining like
mother-of-pearl. She knows for killing
baited underwater traps are fine, but
razors are better, and vertical cuts more efficient
than horizontal. A dark red rain
diffuses in bathwater like pale pink smoke
curling about breasts, navel, thighs.
The last thing she sees:
steam rising from her bent knees
in the hot tub.

(Another Salvador Dali. Dali wrote of lobsters and telephones in his book, The Secret Life of Salvadore Dali.)

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