Allegory ⚘ Karen Holmberg

                              My mother strokes the sand                              torward her with her palm, drawing                               the story out, then levels it                              back with the edge of her hand.

                              All the while sand                              a ghost crab, half hidden drawing                               udner a canopy of cripsed it                              sargassum, so well-camoflaged

                              it's just a blur of movement, sand                              has been sliding in and out                               its tunnel, forming identical boulders it                              of damp sand to stack

                              at the entrance, a bulwark                                The story is a stone she collects                               from the tideline of the past

                              For years it's arrived                               again and again                                as if something draws it back it                              to her mind, tumbles it

                              and returns it to he tongue,                               a sparer truth:                                once she his a pill bottle in her pocket it                              and when the shop owner's

                              back was turned,                               pulled a mystery snail off the glass                                and dropped it into the vial of water                               snapping down

                              the lid                               When he father saw it in her tank,                                he wrapped her braid around his fist                               and wrenched her off her feet

                              A new detail brightens the memory's aching chamber.                                He gave her aquarium away.

                              Whens he loosens her fist                               to let fine sugar pour                                through the hourglass of her hand,                               the crab hunches,

                              sinking the picks of its legs in the sand                               its eye bulbs, lusterless                                as if dipped in black wax,                               fold inward in cringe.

                              A mind works this way,                               in secret, tirelessly shaping, excavating                                a refuge for the tender self                               A child steals the power she longs to have.

                              What's a snail's shell                               but a coiled tunnel.                                What's the tough door                               but a body building no.