I never saw the wooden oyster open its mouth until I was 31.

When I was young, it was just another useless

Object in the junk menagerie,

And as I stood waiting in the living room for the ticker tape stock market parade

To end so I could ask permission to use the phone or watch a movie,

I pretended it was a giant walnut with its very own gavel

For reigning over the courtroom:

Peanuts on trial,

Pecans on jury duty,

Chestnuts confessing.

Or perhaps two tortoises who had found a home

Within one another.

Or perhaps the most ill-conceived deviled egg carrier in human history.

For so long, the voice of the Dow Jones Industrial Index drowned out mine.

But finally, when the house was silent,

When there were no more parades and only me,

I uncovered its nutcracker tongue, curled inside all along,

I understood the quiet years that made the hinges squeak.

And it told me how it had almost forgotten how to open,

Almost forgot why it existed in the first place.