Caracoles

Jennifer Mills

a man hands you
half a lemon in a bowl
two perfect parabolas
inverted
the living part stuck
with pins in its pockmarked skin

a man hands you
a bowl of boiled spirals

the other women drink shyly
at the juice bowl, laugh shyly
at the steam as he lifts the lid
to serve them, steam which hides
the market in the soft dark:
helado men, try your luck men,
men without legs,
the bright crush of strawberries.

with your right hand
you pull a pin, your left
lifts a shell, it is striped
white and brown, to eye height

with your right hand
you pierce the grey flesh
you slip it out, a slickness
you let it hang, impaled

they laugh with their eyes
at whose absent husbands
line cafe walls like rising damp or
sleep all day in your mothers house
with the children
your children
under plastic clocks that tell the wrong time

you drop it in your throat
the limp disgust of oysters
the blank metallic grey
you look at the shell
you drop it

on a heap with the others
which grows swollen, a parabola
inverted
a pregnancy of spent shells

This poem is taken from Total Cardboard issue 7, and remains under copyright. For more information see www.totalcardboard.com