First Pet

When I was eight I brought home a hermit crab

from Chincoteague Island. He was a cluster

of six red crustacean limbs and two beady black eyes

poking out from a painted cobalt shell. One day

I took him to the backyard, watched him climb over exotic

blades of grass.  What was it that made me look away?

Hermit crabs constantly grow to need bigger shells —

he surely crawled out to nothing but pavement and shrubbery,

his soft body carried away by a robin, maybe, or someone’s dog.

But that bright blue shell must still be somewhere

in the neighborhood. A strange, alien monument that leaves

all the backyard bugs whispering guesses.