Little Jesalee finally
shucked her first shell.
For months, the preteen
was only allowed
to shovel empty oysters,
crunching loud
into the pail.
The broken bits
smelling like hot streets
she'd left in Baltimore
across the bays
before coming to Bivalve, NJ.
Her family shack
was some way in the marsh;
though no shore seen there,
the shuckers owned the air.
The knife was heavy, but her
mommy held the wood handle
steady in her hand,
showing just
how to break it open
and get the meat
for frying.
Jesalee held
the smooth inside,
as mommy rushed
back to work.
Shells fell on and on
and, for the girl
never stopped,
long after she'd left.
A tribute to the transplanted shuckers of Bivalve and surrounding areas.
Matthew Sorrento is editor of Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of and Film International Online. His poetry has appeared in The Five-Two and The Ekphrastic Review, and he has contributed reviews and essays to the Los Angeles Review of Books, CrimeTime, and Noir City Magazine, with introductions forStark House Press Crime Classics and booklet essays for Arrow Video. He teaches film studies at Rutgers-Camden, and his edited collection, Becoming Nosferatu: Stories Inspired by Silent German Horror (co-edited with Gary D. Rhodes), is forthcoming from BearManor Media.
Matthew says about this poem: “The poem reflects the experiences of late-19th/early-20th-century Delaware Bay oyster workers in South Jersey, many of whom came from the Chesapeake. I have provided a link about their history, in case it’s of interest. “
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