The Crab

He's turned the crab upside down
and left her
pale plates of underbelly exposed -
moon pearls
on the gravel sand.

Beneath mango sky of paradise,
beside cream water,
no one can save her
from the greedy moisture suck of sun.

She's stranded in her 'turtle turn'
beneath raging palm trees
that line the shores like bilious daisies
from an Alice chapter,

beginning to muse on gardens of seagull beaks
and a cool emptiness of shell
when a ruffle of water hoydens her over
and sweeps her back to sea.