Sea Glass Search | Beachcombing, Cold Water Shelling, and Beach Glass Hunting Coastal New England

 

bathtub shark.

i had a dream we got a shark 

and kept it in our bathtub

(communal living at its finest)

all of our roommates wanted to see it 

but also to use the shower

every morning we would get up and pull back the curtain

and look at the shark

it filled up the whole tub

with its big gray body

there was some concern over the water level 

as you could imagine which kept going down

sometimes so low 

that part of the shark would be peaking smoothly above the surface

so we had to fill it

but not so much that it could overflow

and we couldn't get too close to the shark's head 

or it would attack us maybe

and it couldn't turn around

or roll over in there

so we had to make sure it stayed wet enough

to stay alive which you could tell it was alive

because it swayed slightly 

from side to side in the tub

sometimes and the water sloshed

and it turned its head down so we couldn't see its eyes or its mouth

but we knew they were there

because it used them when it wanted to

when i told Cole he said it was a metaphor

every day us trying to keep up with the depth 

and every day more of it sticking out of the tub

in the dream the shark was very sad

if i loved it would i really let it go?

flat and shadowy barely floating in not enough water

hiding its face so we don't have to see its sadness

a bad decision waiting to live or die and doing neither

we go to look at it but that's all

no swimming nothing to live for nowhere big enough to fit it

sometimes i feel like the shark

and sometimes i feel like the bathtub

the claw.

don't bring home living things he says

or their bodies

unless you know they're dead for sure

i know it is a crab claw but it is hollow

i’m sure of it

not like last week

when i went by myself at night 

and accidentally took home a hermit crab

and soaked it in the coffee container with everything else

until the most horrible smell filled the kitchen

and blue mold and barnacles covered everything inside

when i lifted the lid to look

up came its claws and eyes and

its tiny little butt

all rancid and smelling of death