“If Only I Didn’t Love You” by Susan Jo Russell (poetry, ’17)

An excerpt from the poem, “If Only I Didn’t Love You,” by Susan Jo Russell (poetry, ’17), published at Mass Poetry:

If Only I Didn’t Love You

I knew where to dig
to reach the well of wet sand
where the sand crab, barrel-shaped, sandy pale,

burrowed down fast
while I dug faster, with both hands, the sand falling in
and falling in. It was ancient,

shy, eating
the world from underneath.
Those hard tickling claws,

too alien to hold for long,
scrabbled on my palm—
when I, sad, had to let it go, […continue reading here]