Mussels

A poem I performed at a Literature Wales event today in Neath. Happy St Davids day.

Mussels

Naked feet shooting pains of devout guilt

we grind the sacrosanct barnacle furze

only in places. Bearing no burrs,

over a fathom deep, more beautiful gilt,

damson dark, we mash. Pale bodies so spilt

we see moonlight shot the interiors;

clamps, grow on grow kept them from predators.

We strip timid so many ways to tilt.

Bewildering seizures of thrill wake us,

cut scalpel clean,

                            painless from everything,

every fibre

                 smitten

                              hold

                                      of ocean.

I rise to what a full moon uncovers,

rip from the water-line

                                     ample feasting,

all

     my humility

                         gone

                                 unspoken.