LIMPETS ON MOUSEHOLE'S SHORELINE... (My new poem about Cornwall...)

 Limpets On Mousehole’s Shoreline…

The molluscs clung on at all angles, even along vertical fissures upon

Wet, slick slabs of rock and boulders, worn smooth by the sea 

And by the repetitive beatings they had weathered.

Like tiny ridged pyramids, growths, or immovable

Scabs, they remained attached to their host

By muscular foot suction and sticky mucous, or like cones glued.

Every limpet which had clamped onto one particular surface 

Looked like a conical North American teepee

And below protective stone layers, each wigwam seemed tethered.  

The miniature tents resembled a plains community, humble

As it awaited the next furious tide and then maybe suffer the cost 

Of a predatory wrasse fish’s jaws, violent and crude…

Pete Ray

20th June 2023

  

Looking at limpets upon Mousehole’s shore, clinging to wet rocks and inside crevices, like tiny pyramids or miniature American Native Indian wigwams.

Some had been latched onto by snails.

The only fish with strong enough jaws to remove the shell of a limpet from a rock is a wrasse, apparently…