The night he fed me oysters

alfred eisenstaedt

The night he fed me oysters and I thought maybe this is love

by Taylor Roberts

The night he fed me oysters and I thought,

Maybe this is love. It happened at the peak

Of the taste in a little French restaurant

In the middle of Virginia. The moment

When the salt of the brine hits your throat--that,

That moment--why not call it love? He fed

Them to me like love. He held each shell

In rugged hands that could have strangled me,

But, delicately, he offered them to my lips.

I am trying to measure those moments,

Repeating the motion in dozens.

Is a lifetime of pleasure divisible by 12?

Maybe it is. Maybe I am

Too hungry. I really wanted roses. I don’t

Know why my heart died a little each day

Without them; why my crimson heart chose

To close like a rose in winter without friends.

I don’t know why his eyes were enough

To take me to the edge of the cliff, and

Not enough to make me undo my coat and to

Pour my body into the sand where it touches

Both the ocean and the sun all at once.

Why the feeding with his hands could only

Feel like love if we kept repeating it,

Thinking maybe if we do it again and again

The pearl will fall into my teeth and

We’d know.

We’d know.

I am really a pearl diver, a body of sand.

I can wait here, under the feet of

Tourists to be swallowed, myself, by the

Oyster, instead of the other way around.

I can wait until a piece of my existence

Is stolen in its trap and covered completely

In pearl, because nothing is worth the crimson

Pain of a closing rose, not even when

He feeds you decadence, not even when

He wants to love you well.

I don’t know why my lips were not enough

To pull the pearl from his hands

But you know, I loved trying.

I did love trying.

I did.

[copyright Taylor Roberts, 2015]