LEAVING THE CHESAPEAKE

With crabmeat: pieced out, flung in rice, fried
together, spiced. My salty fingers—
once a child visiting the Chesapeake
Bay—shucked crabs from the cage
after the last of my father’s baseball
games. His whole team there, their families,
like quiet dreaming. I wanted to stay
my whole life, my future. All
grown up, able to keep up
a boat, a house on the bay,
cages and cages of crabs—everyday—
and how to remember how to find the blue lungs,
never to eat them. Gray blue like sea. And
I had a nightmare afterwards. Always afraid
I’d kill someone—myself?—
on poison crab lungs. Maybe it’s best
I don’t live at the Bay.

I went to the beach this weekend. A beautiful Thai island called Koh Samed (I think that's how it's spelled). Our dinner at the shore on Saturday night consisted of fried, spiced rice with crab and a separate dish of fish. (I seem to be all about the rhyming right now). It was delicious, and the whole experience was unreal, but this particular night made me think of something from my childhood. Don't remember exactly how old I was when this took place... but I got a poem out of it.