Suitor Underwater

The giant prawn,
ingrate romantic,

offers us a stilted
music,

vast
and waif-like,

as if to take
so much more.

His pincers
proffer

half-
blackened

drumbeats
of prayer,

gloved conventions
of an aspirant amateur;

balance is all.
Consider him

a suitor who
can pedal

perplexed,
generous,

underwater;
watch his

slow-motion sidling in the ballet
of a stoic, as though

pure concision
in the dance

could not depend
on anything

but air.
Gangling

arms fumble
and unfold,

close upon
a silence,

the vow
to recommend

near transparence
in plain semblance.

Pale deciever,
he can sharpen,

ratify.
His four

golden feelers
only go

so far.

Copyright © 2009 Molly McQuade All rights reserved
from Parnassus: Poetry in Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission