E.R. Pulgar

Crab Ode

For D. Halpern

Bless your tender sockets,
the briny meat of your arms
and legs, wide open
on the table. You go under
my nails as I dig
through a humid childhood
cracking shells open
with a mallet. I was so moved
to know you blue,
red only when boiled,
something in your chemistry
adapting to the heat.
Blessed scuttler of lakes,
sacred ocean companion,
the receding husk of you
tiptoes to its fate,
claws at the knife aware
of a final roiling hell.
I gnaw off your head, 
Saturn devouring a lesser god.

NOTE: “Crab Ode” first appeared in Epiphany: A Literary Journal.

cuarto // estoy aqui

About the Author

E.R. Pulgar is a Venezuelan American poet, critic, and translator. Their criticism has appeared in i-D, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and elsewhere. A Lenfest Fellow in poetry and translation, their work has appeared in PANK Magazine and Blush Lit. They have designed workshops for Catapult and the New York Public Library.