Donald Duck and the Curse of the Crusty Clam

Someone keeps flipping my gossip magazine to the couple
who disappeared in the Bahamas or the wife who faked her
own abduction, crawling back months later in a set of
chains she bought at the hardware store. As if I don’t
already pull into the gunshop parking lot to find
Beethoven’s Fifth on my phone. A truck gets jumped
beside me, stuttering to life on a minor third that knocks
and knocks but never enters.

Pirate Captain Salty Bones warns Mickey and his friends
that the Crusty Clam will curse anyone who pries it open.
Donald’s eyes have already turned to dollar signs as he
swims to an imagined pearl. When it’s over, everything he
touches turns to clams. A compass. A bucket of corn on the
cob. It’s meant to be funny when a pile of clamshells
assembles into Goofy’s form, guffaws, holds out a slice of
berry pie.

I watch a recording of a Sotheby’s auction: a stegosaurus
named Apex, every gleaming link of its backbone pointing
to the auctioneer’s red lip. I watch it twice. How often did
she practice the irreverent lean? The banter? I’ll give you a
minute to think, she says when the bid hits 30 million. At
this point, they’re just numbers.

The curse doesn’t lift until Donald apologizes for wanting
too much.

My son draws a map on the back of my to-do list, a
clam-shaped bubble at the tire shop where Second Street
curves west. For context, he draws another clam at the
corner where we watched a homeless woman ride her bike
into a pole and flip onto the pavement. He points to the first
clam: This is the stoplight where Mom realized she’d lost
her wallet. He points to the second: This is where we pulled
over and called 911.

Betsy Mitchell Martinez's poems appear or are forthcoming in New Letters, Shenandoah, Indiana Review, DIAGRAM, EPOCH, Rattle, and other journals.