whispering from the garden
gliding unctuous bodies like slabs
of margarine toward the open window.
They were after blood for the pearl
necklace my husband gave me,
the lustrous string around my throat,
moonlit and gleaming above the collar
of my shift, pale clavicles.
Snails and slugs crept in solidarity
fat-bellied across the windowsill,
left trails on the walls and over the headboard,
then fell on us with keen pink tongues.
They were young and angry about the ways
their bodies had been used,
but you had to admire their economy;
the way their hearts circulate, reproduce,
expel it all. We had taken something
belonged submerged.