Crab Skin

Crab Skin

Here’s why I’m crouching, huddled over
this ripped skein of sea-grass: studying
a skin. It’s the intricacy that thrills me;
I’m picturing the eyes withdrawing
from those slim stickles, legs flicking
out, segment by segment, tiny claws
unhasping, the flipped tail extending,
flexing, shedding. It’s whisper-thin
as cling-film, pliable plastic, durable
and delicate: pigmentless flotsam,
with all the scuttle escaped from it.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2015.