RICHARD MATTA

Cracking Shells

They flew hundreds of miles before they were cooled 
in the refrigerator to a point where Dad said they wouldn’t 
feel pain in their nearly comatose state, before they were 
lowered into the cauldron, until their shells turned red. 

The butter on the lobster, the slightly sweet taste of meat. 
Sometimes pleasures erase history. My spouse arrives home; 
says the lost eye just paid for a family trip to London, 
the crushed leg our next cruise. Medicines takes patients

to the brink of death where they feel nothing, where surgeons 
do their work. It’s a cold separation. A new attitude 
developed after years of patience. 

We’ll enjoy Buckingham Palace, swim warm Caribbean seas. 
The shells are always cracking, everywhere—then rolled up 
in newspapers. So much detachment.  

Richard L. Matta spent his childhood in the rural Hudson Valley of New York. He now lives in San Diego after many stops along the way as a scientist, primarily forensic. Some of his work is in Third Wednesday, Hole in the Head Review, San Pedro River Review, and Healing Muse.