Crab Dock (Poem)

Crab Dock

by Kim Goldberg

cold bites my mittens with pincushion puppy teeth gnawing

my fingertips

       stubble-face men fumble in sacks, lash slippery

chicken breasts into crab traps

twist and…

sploosh!

gulls shriek like grannies, leap from the sea, float

in the air, return

to their rocking chairs

and wait

~

(text and image © Kim Goldberg)

“Crab Dock” was originally published in The New Quarterly in 2005, and subsequently appeared in my 2007 collection Ride Backwards on Dragon. This poem was one of the first poems I ever wrote. And it was the first poem of mine to be accepted and published by a literary magazine. Thank you, TNQ! I blogged about that here.