It is not my business

when the mayhem of the neighbors’ boy

nails with three iron strokes

a struggling horseshoe crab

above his shed door.

And when its telson slashes out

to cut away the hammer’s grip,

it is not for me to think

of prying the nailed carapace

from the weathered planks.

Now I see how much this boy in half-drunk

devilment knew, without knowing,

whose sunburnt hands impaled

a horseshoe to his door:

the curved sign of some northern god,

father of charms, lord of the hanged,

but still it is not my place to watch

its honest ugliness born in the first sea,

straining upended

to ward of lightning and demon.

Darkness gathers in the spaces

of the window blinds, and a dozen harmless

pincers wave unseen

to pull me in the wake

through the row of knee-high lilacs

planted under the crab sign to keep

the neighbors’ business in their yard.

Against them I trespass

to take the old crab back to water.

The shadow of the telson

raised parallel to the lightning rod

shows there’ll be no storm tonight.

Polaris blazes to its suitors.

And the dipper pours out emptiness where

the dozen arms stretched for its trickle.

Rigid now, they keep the lightning

in its cloud, keep the demon

sleeping in his bed. I will not wake him

to say his horseshoe works. Instead I will

let it hang for the comfort of flies.

I will let it hang as the three nails rust.

I will let it hang like any god.