Debra Kang Dean is
the author of three collections of poetry: "Precipitates" (BOA 2003),
which was nominated for the William Carlos Williams Award; "News of
Home" (BOA, 1998), which was co-winner of the Sheila Margaret Motton Award;
and "Back to Back" (NCWN, 1997), which Ruth Stone selected for
the Harperprints Poetry Chapbook Competition. She teaches in
the brief-residency MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University
and is currently a lecturer at Indiana University in Bloomington.
Hermit Crab
Born unhoused from the waist down,
belly all flesh and vulnerable,
it must borrow a cast-off shell
or pluck out the dead to own one.
Dragged along on solid ground,
useless there as a mermaid's tail,
the shell etches a labored trail.
Claws shield eyestalks, panning.
Once in the water, its shell rises,
the hard rowing gives way,
its armored upper half relaxes,
and the hermit, now lifted up, fuses
selves, borne by the current's wave
for as long as the shell's fit lasts.
Debra Kang Dean is
the author of three collections of poetry: "Precipitates" (BOA 2003),
which was nominated for the William Carlos Williams Award; "News of
Home" (BOA, 1998), which was co-winner of the Sheila Margaret Motton Award;
and "Back to Back" (NCWN, 1997), which Ruth Stone selected for
the Harperprints Poetry Chapbook Competition. She teaches in
the brief-residency MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University
and is currently a lecturer at Indiana University in Bloomington.