It was early afternoon,
or later--
the clouds hung low and
dark, looking bruised from bustling
into each other.
At a drab cafe
facing Pontchartrain,
I sat--
smoking cigarettes
and watching a fat woman
devour oysters.
She'd cup each one into her
pink, pudgy palm
and slurp the brackish slime
into her mouth--
lemon and butter
dribbled down her myriad
of corpulent chins.
Her eyes darted back
and forth like a
treacherous walrus as she
carpentered a terrific
mountain of shells--
opalescent homes
that shone dully under the
gray specter of sun.
I felt a twinge of sadness
for those piteous little bivalves
as the woman tossed her crumpled napkin
upon them like a death shroud.
I hoped their limp, succulent souls
had more auspicious futures--
to jettison from
their calcified tears like
small Aphrodites.
