candice amich

1 “Pensando en la inmortalidad del cangrejo”—thinking about the immortality of the crab—is a Spanish language idiom that refers to daydreaming.

Pensando en la inmortalidad del cangrejo

I’m thinking about the immortality of the crab,

about where it goes once it has shed

its earthly carapace— 

                                     in a heaven far

from the constellation Cancer.

If I gaze into the abandoned amphitheater

of my navel,

                      I can faintly make out

its crustaceous paradise,

                                its exoskeletal afterlife—

away from the scalding water and wooden mallets,

away from the metal crackers

             with their sharp, serrated edges,

             where there are no pointed little forks

or plastic bibs to shield from the splatter.

Within the oceanic O

of my omphalos,

the crab is dreaming

a fathomless dream about

the bottom of the sea,

where the kelp sways lazily,

and the coral feeds

at its leisure,

and, from time to time,

bursts of bubbles

unexpectedly rise

to the surface,

which, from here,

give only the slightest impression

that the water is boiling. 

philip metres