I subscribe to a daily literary email--The Writer's Almanac, produced by Garrison Keillor--and today's featured poem was about eating lobster. Ironic, given that my last post (immediately below) was about harvesting them. Thought you'd enjoy a little bit of culture today--tapping into the sensitive side of all you big, strong (and emotionally fragile) fishermen.
Lobster
by June Robertson Beisch
On first seeing it, I was repelled
by the idea of eating something so
exotic looking and sinister,
having read Jean Paul Sartre's line
about crustaceans having a dubious
consciousness. But I was in New York, and
the young man I had met there tucked
my napkin under my chin and
handed me a nutcracker for the shell.
I was from Minnesota, raised on
lakes and brook trout. I, too, was
uncooked and formless, like the creatures
who take on the shape of their environment
My first taste was delicious, but the
third was even better and by
that time I was a real New York girl
who wore skinny black dresses and false eyelashes,
able to handle myself with any
crustacean, dubious consciousness or not.
"Lobster" by June Beisch, from Fatherless Woman. © Cape Cod Literary Press, 2004.
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