A splintered marble, a silver screw,
a flat grey stone, a sliver worn smooth—
four small objects skewed among
a scatter of change on the counter.
Those of us who rule the world
put just these things together
into round rubber wheels four
for a toy car and a swirl of road
to reshape the malleable world.
Transparent and moist, bred in blackness,
eye-stalks, claws and chassis peep out,
shake off the sand of a spent world.
Ticking pincers mint soft tissue,
gullible and furtive in the full moon.
The crush and tumble of beating bodies,
the pitch and panic of high-tide predators,
the womb welcome, the lift of salt warmth.