This is how I began: a delicacy
to my mother, a scallop rocking in
her shell, one in thousands of my father’s spawn.

And afterwards, the sea befriended us,
gave away its fish. It drank its own
deep cup and did not pour the fishers down

Yesterday the ocean opened its minatory door
         and suggested that the land, from South Carolina
         to New England, had best come inside.