Ode to Oysters
Soft sea-tongues, what
telling. What chorus
of clacks from the edges
of continents, slate cymbals
percussing the flux.
O oysters. O empaths. Silt-
filters. You take it all in.
Humble harbor-redeemers,
bay-saviors. Sustainers.
Underestimated ones. Praise
for much-maligned
textures: liver-like, lava-like
sluice of interiors. It’s like
sliding down into the mouth
of a crater, back through time
to the planet’s origins—
that mineral, gouged-out
softness; that colorful,
colorless earthbody,
all weathered wonder,
split wide in violent
reverence.
At nineteen, I first
kissed the mouth
of adulthood. Saw you
shucked from a bucket
beside the host’s chair
in France. Watched
how he prized
and carefully passed you,
cradled in your shell
as one might a slick
newborn, still brined with
birth. I gingerly slit
your skin with my teeth,
savored dirt, surge, the body,
tender guesswork of guts,
sweet and salt. I thought:
I am going to be happy.
O heartbeats. O oysters.
O high-piled shell
middens, ancestors.
Food of crabs, starfish,
seabirds that arc high to crack you
on rocks. O calcium
carbonate, soil-
restorers, purgers
of nitrates. O generous
jewelers of nacre.
Ululations, O
pungent sea-truffles,
sludge-sublimity,
hard-armored sucklings.
O grit-house.
O grief-salve.
O garrulous
clusters. O perfect
aloneness. O milky
mantra. Mire, metaphor,
poem. Give me
fog-shrouded pearls.
Give me lone shiplight.
Give me here, here,
this moment. Your
continuous, effortless
calling.
telling. What chorus
of clacks from the edges
of continents, slate cymbals
percussing the flux.
O oysters. O empaths. Silt-
filters. You take it all in.
Humble harbor-redeemers,
bay-saviors. Sustainers.
Underestimated ones. Praise
for much-maligned
textures: liver-like, lava-like
sluice of interiors. It’s like
sliding down into the mouth
of a crater, back through time
to the planet’s origins—
that mineral, gouged-out
softness; that colorful,
colorless earthbody,
all weathered wonder,
split wide in violent
reverence.
At nineteen, I first
kissed the mouth
of adulthood. Saw you
shucked from a bucket
beside the host’s chair
in France. Watched
how he prized
and carefully passed you,
cradled in your shell
as one might a slick
newborn, still brined with
birth. I gingerly slit
your skin with my teeth,
savored dirt, surge, the body,
tender guesswork of guts,
sweet and salt. I thought:
I am going to be happy.
O heartbeats. O oysters.
O high-piled shell
middens, ancestors.
Food of crabs, starfish,
seabirds that arc high to crack you
on rocks. O calcium
carbonate, soil-
restorers, purgers
of nitrates. O generous
jewelers of nacre.
Ululations, O
pungent sea-truffles,
sludge-sublimity,
hard-armored sucklings.
O grit-house.
O grief-salve.
O garrulous
clusters. O perfect
aloneness. O milky
mantra. Mire, metaphor,
poem. Give me
fog-shrouded pearls.
Give me lone shiplight.
Give me here, here,
this moment. Your
continuous, effortless
calling.
May / June 2023
Clara McLean lives and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area. Earlier poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Rattle, Cider Press Review, Terrain.org, Foglifter, Valparaiso Review, and Berkeley Poetry Review, among other publications.
Art: Jennifer Peart. Rewilding the Rough, acrylic on wood panel, 12” diameter