Oyster

by Michael Pedersen

Bums to seats down at the table
like a book with a fresh new ending —
in every direction universes beyond this
this room glimmer and creak, skies
strain, though I do not notice,
my eyes are here lit as candles:
chatter swoops and whispered words
whisk up a clamour, the clink
of glasses rustle bread in baskets.
She licks wined lips and then
my oyster: sluuuuuuup, kissing
me, kissing sea, a life–long
veggie, une mère, une femme,
une runaway bandit — pink propulsive
tongue a creature of its own.
No bones in tongue nor oyster,
though a marvel nonetheless: a
zinc–pumped seabed filter system,
oyster has many magics and mollusc–y
mischief, is worthily lickable —
yet she had never licked an oyster!
Her tongue recoils gingerly, processing
them flavoursome fecundities;
the fleshy grope is silent and wordless,
the moments après noisy and weird
rattle around, shake out a coy smile.
Not to be bested, the oyster too tastes
tongue, zaps back, a shiver to
the spine from the aquatic journeyman.
How does tongue taste to oyster ?
No matter, best not to know.
This meeting six months back was
its own never–never land, a hunk of
‘would never happen, nae hope in hell’ —
yet here we are plucky as moon
still out in morning, sat thigether
in Paris’s Latin Quarter, watching,
wi the een of plotting seagulls,
this salt trailed mystery trip unravel.
I’m staring down both barrels at
your stars, born out of sparks:
you licked my oyster, you are
the oyster licker, one brilliantly bizarre
little alien meets another for pearlescent
new discovery. Clink the glass, for
the very oyster you licked
echoes down my throat now — the mischief
in your mollusk my tongue
understands.