The Decorator Crab,
       

bedecked with seaweed, polyps, knobs, and buds

of algae, wheels around the shore on legs

like mossy branches while it looks around

for fringe or sponge to hook upon its back.

Its eye for dough is matchless, though the jazz

it wears is mismatched: rosette webs with sand-

encrusted seaweed, scraps of dross and fish

tissue, and hodgepodge bits to hide beneath.

The guise is custom-made, arrayed in such

a way to con and keep its foes away.

There's nothing paltry on its zigzag route,

and every slight anemone or snarl

of string may be desired and conjoined

with it. Eclectic crab, collector flecked

with others, nothing can be drab so long

as objects hold allure as intimates.

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Copyright © 2012 Sarah Giragosian All rights reserved
from Copper Nickel
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission