s k i p p i n g s t o n e s

Reading an Ex Lover’s First Novel

I don’t mind if you say her blouse
fell open like thunder, or if you recall
the amethyst veins inside her eyelids, the sand 
in the delicate ditch of her neck. Go ahead 
and compare the strung lights of the pier 
to white streamers behind a black wedding car. 
And those sea oats, scraping
under the constellations, did console.
But I have a problem
with the way you describe the body
of the crab washed up that morning
as an orchid, as a music box, as
if it were intact, when in fact
the thing was pink chunks of meat
that floated away from each other,
blue broken pieces of shell on a gut-string.
You saw it. You 
were there—
that enormous claw, dangling
like a polite, ridiculous teacup.

Ashley Capps