pearl
not every oyster has a perfect fucking pearl nestled in there, cuz those perfect fucking pearls, those fucking hurt. talk about pain for beauty. humans like it but what’s in it for the oyster? why over and over, thousands, millions, billions of oysters making pearls that get them cracked and killed, not even nutrition, defense, why such a damning development for handling a grain of sand? not every oyster has a perfect fucking pearl nestled in there but what
good does it do an individual oyster to leave the sand to rub, the
chances of getting stolen and cracked are the same, either way.
in the end, we opt for a little comfort, not
survival of the species.
Naomi Buck Palagi grew up in the woods of Kentucky and has meandered throughout the South and Midwest United States. She has work published in journals such as Spoon River Review, Otoliths, Masque and Spectacle, Eleven Eleven, BlazeVOX and The Esthetic Apostle, and has had work featured on WGLT’s Poetry Radio. She has three chapbooks, including Imagine Renaissance from Locofo Chaps, and her first book, Stone, is recently out from BlazeVOX books. She currently co-produces the Sewanee Spoken Word series in Sewanee, Tennessee. For more of Naomi’s work, visit naomibuckpalagi.weebly.com