SELF-PORTRAIT WITH BURIED CLAMS

Tide was out, low light pizzazz over Minas Basin under
the sun’s flaring. A long ululation from the sea, a sound
like swelling as we searched for clam dimples in the sand—
long-handled spading fork dragging behind. Sea funk,
one solivagant piper on the rocks, the two of us back
and forth across the tidal flat like a negative image or a dream
reversing. I remembered a black and white photograph
of two nuns clamming, skirts hiked against the sea, bone white
wimples wet and blown. One woman with sniffishness
as the other bent low to gather the ocean in her arms.
Longing does not give up easily. The wind, a deipnosophist.
A siphon-breathed hole in the sand. I sank, held my breath
as we dove in again. I couldn’t express how I felt. The clam
in zugzwang as I dug, a small gap forming between
the surface layer and the deep.