PREOCCUPIED

with the logistics of attending a concert,
we test the vitality of our mussels molto allegro,
snapping their calcified seams together
like castanets, plunging them
into ice water specked with cornmeal
grace notes left from desilting.

One gapes like a chorister but, immersed,
stirs a chalky appendage,
earning the right to diminish
in unison with its counterparts.

Minutes later I retrieve this one
from garlic sauce, pry it
open, but find no sea sweet morsel,
only the tiny, crystalline remnants
of a starfish
gently curled
into a fermata.



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