I Don’t Usually Believe in Omens

but last night the hermit crab
you bought for Oskar

abandoned his shell to drag
his naked body into the sand.

Indecision and inaction fill
the silence of this shrinking house

my steady pulse whooshing
like a trapped ocean in my ear.

I wonder if pet hermit crabs still hear
waves echo in their store-bought shells

or if that gentle rush is absent––maybe
that’s why ours was never content

constantly swapping shells until the night
it chose to expose itself––the night before

the police called to tell us you too
had cast off your outer husk

––let your energy and stardust
escape into the open air.

We Googled what to do with a shell-less crab
and it said to wait. They may burrow and molt

or slowly rot like ours did before we buried it
beneath the tree in our backyard.

*

Nothing Wasted

My grandmother would eat
the ugliest fruit first. “They grow
from the same roots,” she’d say
and she’d shake them
from the same branches.

She’d set the normal fruit
aside for me and my sisters
apples, peaches, apricots, plums.
She collected their mangled brethren

hidden explosions of flavor
more delectable to her because
they should have been undesirable
sweet flesh and juice buried
beneath their malformed skins.

*

It Doesn’t Go Down Easy

Truth settles into my jaw like stone
and my teeth grind it into pieces
almost small enough to swallow

which causes my eyes to water
when I force each bite down
like the gel capsules I had to take

for asthma flare-ups, but choked on
and spit onto the kitchen floor
so my parents filled a spoon with water

and emptied the pill contents––
tiny white balls that would trick
my body into breathing again––

that left me with a bitter tongue
and lungs still gasping for air.

*

Gabby Gilliam is a writer, an aspiring teacher, and a mom. She lives in the DC metro area with her husband and son. She is a founding member of the Old Scratch Short Form Collective. Her first chapbook, No Ocean Spit Me Out, was released in June 2024 from Old Scratch Press. Her poetry and fiction has appeared online and in multiple anthologies. You can find her online at gabbygilliam.com.