symbiosis and the sea urchin, or, a lesson in impossible love

by Nadine Ellsworth-Moran

I find you there, just at the edges 

where I walk with bare feet

along the rocks. Beneath 

the surface of this feral sea,

you wait.  Every impulse says, 

don’t reach out—            yet

yearning pulls me forward, 

fingers hover over water.  Indifferent,

you look up through waves, my liquid

confusion.  How can I hold you?

With open palms, I cradle your body,

each spine, a warning toward restraint.  

I know you will hurt me.  I know.

Underneath spines another barrier,

your test, an exoskeleton, caging

tenderness with plates fused

like armor.  I have no test, only

flesh, easily pierced.  I will carry

scars from holding you so dearly.   

Your mouth, the form of Aristotle’s 

lantern, moves across my hands, reveals

your hunger, how you search out

every crumb that will nourish, scrape

it from rocks and hull.  But I offer scapula

and carpus—      sustenance bone deep,

recognition between creations, bound.

Now you will seek me on this ragged

edge of understanding where stone

and sky converge in the light 

of our belonging.