A SHRIMP’S BLACK VEIN

is its intestinal track. 
Likened to a vein as a tool 
of expediency, the alternative, 
crudeness.

Never crude—I harbor 
a need for cleanliness that surfaces 
only in the way I hold my tongue.
The thin ribbon

along a shrimp’s back is also
called a sand vein. Strange
how quick we move to disguise 
unwanted information. I gather

facts by the fist-full—like:
each shrimp is a mood ring.
White shrimp live in low-salinity
environments; red shrimp gorge 
themselves on krill. Crustacean or not, 
we bare ourselves to the world
universally.

Another fact: the sand vein is either 
partially or fully filled 
with what a shrimp has eaten, 
thus processed, in a day. 

The easy way out: A body
is at once its past, present, and future. 
	Brimming. 
The hard way through: A body
is a processing machine.

–Is this all too much? this task 
of proving care, of explanation 
& information, fruitless?

Shrimp blood pumps external, 
their circulatory system 
on their sleeve. 
	I am thinking of harm.
The shrimp and its external 
inner body, its blood and 
shit in the open.
	I am thinking of harm.
Bleeding-heart syndrome.
	I am thinking

that I am a poor caretaker 
and have been all along.  

My efforts to keep clean
are nixed: the shrimp’s black vein 
is completely edible. 

The tragedy of carrying-on continues.

Removing the vein is easy
—take a knife
and slice downward—
but the body, severed, 
only allows bloody acts 
the grace of approachability:

but none of the ease. 

Is it all about
keeping one’s mouth clean? 
Is the metaphor 
about gut-
health? about micro-
biomes? bio-functionality,
bi-directionality, biting, gnashing, 
or gnawing?—
all the same question, all the same answer.

I think on this poem for a year, as if
I don’t already know the answer.