My dad and I sit on a sun-watched dock,

crabbing, winding bright white lines

around our fingers, holding clenched

the net. The line convulses—

slowly I now hoist it to the air,

and swish the net, and recognize

respective strength, my thin arms

holding pounds of water and crab-life.

I dump it on the deck. Yellow sponge

is oozing from its shell, inside which

children grow. I jam my net into its chest

and crack it. Yellow yellow.

How does a child reconcile itself

with the realization that it has a uterus?

How could they explain, at that age,

the yellow sponge, that amateur dissection,

prizing apart the thin cracked shell, my father

with his mastectomy scars?

It was not explained to me. I threw the crab

into the water since we could not eat it.