Bildungsroman

By Paula Persoleo

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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The female mates
only once

with her mid-
Atlantic blue.

That doesn't mean
this decapoda

can't survive
without him.

True, before
she's mature,

she's carried
under

the weight
of his shell,

russet pincers scratching
the surface

of the bay's
brackish floor

as she stores him
inside her

to spawn
over and over

alone
with her egg sac.

But
carnivore,

omnivore,
detritivore,

claws crack
clams 

to support
a million minions
 
tucked tightly
to her carapace.

Once winter's
cold water comes,

she burrows
in the sand,

insulating herself,
isolating herself,

a scavenging 
specimen

in the salty
estuary.

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Paula Persoleo is a graduate of Stony Brook University’s MFA program in Southampton, NY. Her work has been accepted by Philadelphia Stories, Sheila-Na-Gig, Mantis, and Tulane Review. In 2018, she was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by Beltway Poetry Quarterly. She teaches in the MALS program at the University of Delaware and works at a nonprofit organization in Newark, DE.

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