Clam-digging for 'Soft Edible Bodies': Poet Carol Levin on a quintessential Pacific Northwest experience

Each day during the month of April, KUOW is highlighting the work of Seattle-based poets for National Poetry Month. In this series curated by Seattle Civic Poet and Ten Thousand Things host Shin Yu Pai, you'll find a selection of poems for the mind, heart, senses, and soul.

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arol Levin's poem "Soft Edible Bodies on April Fools Day" depicts the quintessential Pacific Northwest experience of razor clamming and speaks to the ways in which the unique region where we live can shape our experiences and memories of place.

Poet Carol Levin's recent books include "An Undercurrent of Jitters" and "Confident Music Would Fly Us to Paradise," both from MoonPath Press. "Stunned By the Velocity" and "Red Rooms and Others" were published by Pecan Grove Press.

Soft Edible Bodies on April Fools Day

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lam-diggers agitate like metal shavings do when they’re frenzied by a magnet.

Tires squeal onto the sand at five a.m. All sizes and ages wrestle spades or rasp fingers through the sand to roundup sand-fluted jewels, bucketloads of burrowing bivalve mollusks.

A swagger in their heels, clam-diggers lick salt from their lips and head home as the sun passes the rim of their pails loaded with bubbles escaping.

Republished from "Sea Lions Sing Scat" (Finishing Line Press, 2007).