Armadillidium vulgare, terrestrial crustacean
Ancient as lobsters,
we’ve come from the sea,
to live in the in-between,
in wetlands where our gills
learned to draw air from
leaf litter under sodden logs.
My offspring swim
in a single water droplet
shielded by one of my plates
and if threatened I can roll
tight inside my own armor.
Immense as you are, I imagine
you suffer. Even curled,
your bodies are soft.
This poem first appeared in Embracing Wetlands (2024).
—
Marion Starling Boyer is a professor emerita of Communication and has published three full-length poetry collections and three chapbooks. Her book, Ice Hours (2023), won the University of Michigan’s Wheelbarrow prize and was named “New and Noteworthy” by Poets & Writers. Her chapbook, What Word for This, won Grayson Books 2023 competition. Boyer lives in Twinsburg, Ohio, home of the annual world gathering of twins. She conducts workshops for Lit Cleveland. www.marionstarlingboyer.com.
