Picked clean at the shoreline
leaning from the boat,
stretched long, almost tipping,
fingers grazing and fumbling
among shiny oval leaves.
Half for the pail,
half for me.
Sweet and sour, an unlikely crop
for a ponds edge.
Water and sun, we found the rock, a shelf,
stepped out and dove in.
Muck on the bottom squeezing between toes,
then we back float, feet held high,
that quicksand will swallow you whole.
We dove again, and surfaced with
a mussel clamped to a stick.
And another on the bottom
a hole in the shell,
big enough for a small finger,
soft, white, wet, slimy.
Touch it.
This small life lived here,
stuck,
near the shore of the pond.
