The Manatees of Memphis
 
It’s midnight and the local Long
John Silver’s franchise is packed.
I join the frenzy. Inside,
the countertops buckle below
deep fried megameals. Styrofoam
mollusks revealing radulae of breading
and bone, the pale hearts
of biscuits bobbing in russet grout.
The empty food sacks, a midden
of frail shell on the floor. All here
where we, the manatees of Memphis
gather to feed on the fries, huddling
like genetically modified elvers
under the incandescent anesthesia
of the infrared coral.
 

                                                                Published in Four Chambers Press