in the moments before
a restaurant’s doors open
before the frenzy
it can be as quiet as a cave at the bottom of the ocean
all is prepared and arranged
linens, candles, glasses ready for filling
for the seafood lovers, stacks of bibs
hinged metal shell crackers, slender forks for fine picking
against the wall, painted with a blue-green undersea scene
in the bubbling glass tank
the mottled-brown lobsters, round-eyed
handcuffed claws, flesh-filled tails
crowded and befuddled
in their prison of endless corners
waiting to be among the chosen
lowered, eyes first, into salted, boiling hell
tail knocking against the pot
slowly turning as red as the devil’s tongue
