Crab Science

The cold wet sand sucks
my fist. Down and down
under, sucked,


Turning, churning with the
great grey weight of
the high North Sea


and the Crabs' march.
Dogged armoured
spider feet, turning


shifting sand. Membrane slides
on silicate silt -
tectonic the mouth


of the Devourer, Crab!
Shining eyeballs stare
at cliffs, and process…


Progress from ghost
grey world with weed
seething in the salt,


through ruinous pillars
and looming gates
rocks, tide rough,


up from hidden burrows
dark – carapace comes,
through yellow fog


the curtain of underwater
sandstorm settles in foam,
across the pebbles of Omaha,


of Juno, of Sword, Utah
Gold. The beach defences
succumb to Neptune,


the marching spiny legs,
the exoskeletal tank.
But these are not invaders.




My fist pulls free of sand
my hand cold, rimed red
and I see the Crabs are


watching. Their back and
forth is synchronous, not sideways
CrabWise, beyond my


understanding. They chew the
beach, gathering coastlines
to the mandibles, remembering


everything. Their short shelled
shelf-life is fought for:
selfish on the seashore.


Jealous researchers from
the fraught surf. I stare back
at the cold Crab claws, chelae,


long years, Jurassic seabed until
today. They will never go
away. Data-day forever


the low-tide, high-tide of
Crustacea. I too will die
watched by shining eyes


and be processed, cold skin
dragged through sand, from
cliff to rock to North Sea bed,


clothed in seething weed,
sinking under sucking sand,
subject to Crab Science.