All Female

At the night-markets, women

peddle their prices, shout in swift

Cantonese over gurgling tanks

of sea spawn: snails, young eels born

for smoke, coal, skewers. The blood

clams loll, tongues over shell lips

as we buy a bag of cockles

and three crabs, sweet with egg.

Their claws beg, puncture holes

in the cherry red, Please come again.

At home, my women crack them open,

cleaver at lip's hem, plunge and snap.

The men watch game shows,

as we wreck the girl bodies

for roe, and I don't know why.

They are always sweeter, more pricey,

Halmeoni says, pulling the last claw

from the last crab, stumps still writhing

in the sink. She dismantles the breast next

and what pulsates inside is all gully and wet.

It's always the girls, for everything.

When was the last time you've heard

of a rooster soup? We put the bodies

to boil in salt and broth.

Outside, the winter

interrogates, our windows

fogged, and in our bodies

we are always lost.

If our feast ever happens,

if time has not misplaced us,

may these girls rise violet

from the pot, untangle their legs

from perilla and leek

and make for the sea

with their limbs in their teeth.

Originally published in Narrative Magazine, “The Crab”