my mother strokes the sand

toward her with her palm,

drawing the story out,             then levels it      back with the edge of her hand.            All the while

                                                                                                                                         a ghost crab, half-hidden

                                                                                                                                         under a canopy of crisped            sargassum, so well-camoflaged              it's just a blur of movement

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               has been sidling in and out

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               its tunnel,                            forming identical boulders

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 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             to her mind, hand            tumbles it,            and returns it to her tongue,

                                                                                                        a sparer truth: once she hid

                                                                                                        a pill bottle in her pocket,                         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 her 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 hand.            When she 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. It's eye bulbs,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                           in the sand.                                 lusterless                 as if dipped in black wax,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           fold inward in a cringe.

A mind works in 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.