Bivalve
- Bivalve
On the pewter plate, a dozen smaller feral plates, Brine & crag, the gray asymmetries, cobbled & shucked,
The half shells ensilvered, each enthroning a bulbous Bluepoint. Muzak & the sea breeze. The water reaches
Almost to our raw bar table. Overcast sky. We’ve come to teach The boys. Oysters atremble on a gingham cloth,
Saline tang upon Jake’s lips. Horseradish, Tabasco, The tongue regressing to its ancient language, sacerdotal,
To quicken & imparadise the mouth & throat. In the harbor The masts are shook foil in sunset. We order a dozen more.
& in Guantanamo, the hunger-striking prisoner Is brought in shackles to the “feeding chair.”
Restraints undone, then reapplied—forehead, hands, feet. Three marines in camo, saber rattle of the key rings on their belts. [End Page 618]
The overhead fluorescents hum. Stark is the palette: Walls pulsing white, steel-gray chair, the prisoner’s orange jumpsuit,
& the yellow rubber tube unwound. The prisoner squirms As it’s rammed up the nostril, snaking the esophagus & down
To the stomach. Two cans of Ensure—French vanilla— Church-keyed open & slowly poured by funnel
Through a “gravity drip bag.” Ahmed Mujstafa Diyab, citizen Of Syria, captured Pakistan, detained eleven years, eleven
Months. 10:00 pm, the thirtieth forced feeding of the night. The prisoner silent. The guards bent to their phones, texting
Fresno & Atlanta, kds asleep alrght? U gt that oil change done? Half an hour & the drip bag’s drained, the hose reeled in.
The boys have gotten the hang of it. Speared by plastic tines— The living bivalves tremulous against the teeth, grit of sand.
& the restaurant’s packed now—everyone awaiting the fireworks; (It’s only the third, but the next town over does it on the Fourth.) [End Page 619]
Above the harbor, starbursts of orange and aquamarine. & Sousa, mangled by the Orleans High School band.
Peony, Spider, Horsetail, & Chrysanthemum. Crossette, Willow, Fish. Explosions muffled, for the sky has opened up.
Rain sheeting down, the waiter scurries to clear our plates. We’re running soaked, the lobster bibs still aproning our shirts,
Squeezed into the crowd beneath a swaybacked canopy. The thud, the purple washed-out smear, the grand finale. [End Page 620]
david wojahn is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently World Tree, the winner of the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. He has a book of essays on poetry called From the Valley of Making. He teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University and in the MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
