Tag: Eric Nelson

Hermit Crabs by Eric Nelson

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Hermit Crabs

Most of them now use plastic or metal
for their homes. I saw one online
wearing a coffee scoop. Another hoisted a pvc joint
like a telescope. A little one donned a fun-size
fruit cocktail can. Shells are heavier and cumbersome
to lug around. But our garbage provides a steady
supply of lightweight camouflage and flashy displays.
The rakish tilt of the red coffee scoop sends
an unmistakable crawl hither signal, not to mention
the appeal of its long, hard handle. And the elbow joint—
he enters one side, she the other…you know the rest.
It’s unfortunate that some slip in, get stuck, and die.
But we once lived dangerously in caves and trees
and fashioned talismans with bones and feathers.
Seashell necklaces protected us. And look at us now,
thriving in our microplastics. Millions of pounds
of bottle caps, medicine cups, and other trash
are washing up on the beaches of the world. Hermits
are crawling and choosing among the bright array.

*

Eric Nelson’s most recent book is Horse Not Zebra (Terrapin Books, 2022). He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

ONE ART’s 2021 Pushcart Prize Nominations

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Congratulations to Chad Frame, Heather Swan, Erin Murphy, Kristin Garth, CL Bledsoe, and Eric Nelson!!

Read these meritorious poems here:

Chad Frame – Shepard

Heather Swan – On the Day After You Left This World

Eric Murphy – Revision Lesson

Kristin Garth – Sometimes a Cigar is Not Just

CL Bledsoe – I Wish You Were Fun

Eric Nelson – My Brothers

Two Poems by Eric Nelson

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My Brothers

I was walking home from school.
Across the street two older boys—
high-schoolers my sisters knew
and didn’t like—stood slugging it out
on the sidewalk, really going after
each other—torn shirts, blood, headlocks,
kidney punches. I watched, absorbed
and afraid that somehow I’d be pulled
into their whirlwind of flailing and cursing,
their boyness, hard as the brothers I didn’t have.
A car drove past, slowed, kept going.
Another slowed, pulled over. A man
in a tan uniform got out and yelled.
The boys bolted for the hedges.
The man looked at me and asked if I was ok.
I didn’t know what he meant. I nodded.
He got into his car and drove off.
I looked to the empty place where the boys
and car and man had been. It felt like
trying to call back a dream.
And here they came, staggering from the hedge,
laughing. They took their places on the sidewalk.
One of them smeared something near his mouth
as red as the lipstick my sister once spread across
my pursed lips. The other boy shouted
at me, Did it look real? A car was coming.
They grabbed each other and started fighting.
I saw how it was done. The car slowed down.
I was ready, if it stopped, to run.

*

Sheltered in Place

Possum scamper on the front porch.
Two great horned owls nest at the edge
instead of deep within the woods.
A black bear stands looking in the kitchen window
like it’s casing the place for a smash and grab.

They’re checking on us. Wondering, in their way,
why we’ve gone quiet. Why we appear as they do,
cautiously, before light, faces hidden. Hoping,
however they hope, we’ve changed. For their good.

The moon has come closer, too. It’s larger. Brighter.
The man in it gone.

*

Eric Nelson’s poems have appeared in many print and online venues, including The Sun, Poetry, The Oxford American, Poetry Daily, and Verse Daily. The most recent of his six poetry collections, Some Wonder, was published by Gival Press in 2015. His new collection, Horse Not Zebra, which includes “My Brothers” and “Sheltered in Place,” will be published in 2022 by Terrapin Books. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.