Hello, Mr. Hermit Crab 

What a lovely home you have 

A twirly pink conch shell

I wanted to put it on my shelf

Till I realized you were there

What a scare!

I’m sorry I put you through a hurricane

Scooping you along with a Chuck-It stick

Through the clear water

My inner tourist-oceanographer is to blame

I let you stay in the home you picked

But do you know how rare it is to find a whole conch shell out here in the bay?

Well, maybe you do 

Even one with little white barnacles on the inside 

Prime real estate 

I put you back down in the soft sand of the shallow waters 

And continued my wade 

You know, I feel like a hermit crab

Just with a less desirable shell 

Out in a lonely bay 

No one knows me too well

It’s nice to tuck away 

For me, it’s my imaginary cave 

It’s hard to come out once I’m in 

Exiting takes a real friend

And they’re all gone (except my Golden retriever) like the tide

I guess that’s life

Sometimes insults cut really deep 

In solitude, the cave seems to put everything at ease 

This is the farthest I come – out to these jetties in the bay 

They and the sun and the water and the birds take some of the sorrow away

Ah, this wasn’t meant to be a lament 

Talking to a hermit crab is how my morning was spent 

What do you know, the little critter wiggled out of his residence 

He followed me to the shoreline

The two of us arrived, just two exoskeletons

A few people came up to us to chat 

For some reason, I guess just to talk 

On a pretty September morning

Behind me and that hermit crab was a cave and a conch