JOHANNA SPARKS
Photography ©2004 KERRI

Barnacle

We’d vacation on Elbe and along the
coasts of  Brittany and Wales.
Raised in the confines of Frankfurt,
he longed (as did I) for the
meanderings and reaches of the sea…
its fragile shores, its
watery creatures of rock
and foam.

Informed by these
things he comes to me in
fish-disguise, nibbling his way,
with red mouth, round as an “O”, mobile
as tides… up the barrier reef of thigh, into salty inlets
and shoals, opening me, the willing mollusk. 
My fish, grazing along sea walls among
sea fern and barnacle… experience
draws you to the most treasured…
the miniature fortress whose
electrified plume sways
in the currents
of  your approach.
Small sucking noises,
languid seaweed tongue, 
delicately he hovers and laps,
cajoling,  with those endlessly
aching fish-kisses, ‘til ecstatic
flesh darkens, lifts, erupts,
and in the tidal flood
is consumed…