Wellfleet: i.m. John Slatin
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Harrows of late light on the heels of the night tide upended now,
the teeth sunk deep into inlet, shallows . . . and so intent was I
on it, on seeing exactly how dusk thickened water to gore,
I almost missed them, the dozens of sand buttons, quarter-round, sidling
all one direction, away from what moved (water) and what didn’t
(my feet), barnacled all over, the color of mustard and mussel,
their single great claw wiping air from the antlers of their eyes . . .
and then I lost them among the runners of wayside wisteria, a switchback [End Page 233]
of honeysuckle mixed with wild grape musk, the lilac dark
filled with so many unstilled wings . . . As I walked off
the salt marsh across a boardwalk placed there expressly it seemed
for me, the day’s fading lambency lit up the black
escutcheon of a horseshoe crab long dead and waiting there
like something Assyrian for those who can’t take a walk alone
or like whatever it is is waiting for those who won’t . . . [End Page 234]
Kurt Heinzelman is a professor of English at the University of Texas (Austin), where he serves as Director of the Creative Writing Program. His books include The Halfway Tree (poetry) and Black Butterflies (poetry), both finalists for the Natalie Ornish Prize; The Economics of the Imagination (literary and intellectual history), a Choice Outstanding Academic Book; and Make It New: The Rise of Modernism and The Covarrubias Circle, both exhibition catalogues.
