Are you the widow?
the man asks her
in Social Security prose.
She is hidden deep inside,
far from the sounds
even a conch remembers
from the salt sand,
her beetle claws pluck
with pincher teeth,
her armor
a three-segment carapace.
Even strewn with widow-
weeds her shell is black.
She says, No,
I am Lucanus Cervus –
can you hear me from deep inside?
His number was 208 34 6637.