Clayton Clark

This Morning I Ate the Holes

left by tiny snails in my Tuscan kale,
wrinkled holder of holes.

I’d gone to the garden and knelt to cut
but couldn’t after finding on the underside
a creature with a spiral galaxy

riding its back. I left it on the leaf,
ten-thousand-times the snail’s size, where
the little alien opened portals

with its twelve-thousand teeth. Glad
it didn’t end up one of my regrets.
I returned to the kitchen with some

greens, guest-free, and hoped nothing
would swoop down or crawl up to swallow
the mini designer

who offered me new world views, one
after another and proof we are not alone.

 

 

---

Clayton Clark is a painter and poet. Her work has appeared in Juxtapose, SALT and the anthology While You Wait among other places. She came to poetry late in life and is grateful for the world it has opened.