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.