Rocky Mountain Oyster

let the tempered hands

of alchemists

be those that hold my flesh.

to lay me, half-lit

by pearlescent shore,

prawn of a mountain

once swallowed in sea.

is it possible to peel you

back without a sting? i fear

i embedded you in

bedrock. cloaked myself

with alpine fossils

of molluscs, learned

to curl into my fingers

the empty shells of ammonites.

questions linger

in the exoskeleton i carved,

where vestigial creatures

contort their frames

to fit the contours of

your chin

to my face.

beneath the hardened carapace

do i still beat with my own blood?

on my tongue i hold

impressions of salt.

teachers excavate me

by scalpel, extract

entangled mountain

from the breath-brine of

a long-gone sea.

is it possible to form myself

again beyond your shape?

to see myself and not behold

a memory of you?

by moonlight i will weep

to see the ocean form your face

and i will rise again

another morning,

dancing sun upon the surface

of water,

glaze my rocky spine

with reflections of

its liquid light.