Bivalve’s Love Song: Chimera 66 #5

(In Honor of, and with Simultaneous Apologies to, Valentine’s Day)

 

Oysters are the very definition of protean, beginning life as plankton and then becoming hard-shelled organisms able to change sex at least once per lifetime (photo by Flickr user Swamibu.)

 

From a temperate boudoir she comes,

fused with metamorphic rock.

You slaver to rasp slaty cleavage

with ravening tongue—

exploring textures.

It might be gneiss

to possess such a hybrid.

Highest bride,

whom I pried

from vinegar rest-bed,

for her “delicate, toothy texture”

and briny liqueur.

But sink this deeply into keratinized mind:

Being so caught up,

she has you shut in her

fickle flesh, adducted.

---

Inspired by Grammar Ghoul’s Chimera 66 #5 writing prompt. The prompt was oyster, and it probably helps to read the links I’ve provided above and here, unless you have a really good memory from high school biology on bivalves and other sea life (or, obviously, if you’re a marine biologist). Hope you enjoyed this innuendo-, entendre-, and pun-filled (semi-) writing departure; you might still have time to get yours done. The deadline is today (Friday), and there are great writers there already! Where are you?

MORE SOURCES & INSPIRATIONS:

On the Eastern oyster

W.B. Yeats, “Leda and the Swan”

And, finally, you might as well take a little trip back with gender-bending father Tiresias (who has “crossed the poles”); excuse the boring graphics–but the audio seems good except for clipping off the very end of the instrumental, which leads inexplicably into “Supper’s Ready” despite them being on different albums

 

Advertisement