Almost nothing is known
of its ecological role.
No herbivores have shown
interest in the green marble
burrowing like a boil
in the coral’s epidermis,
immune to benzoyl
peroxide and remiss
to popping unprovoked.
Without neurons, it vegetates
like a grudge, hard and cloaked
in nacre, fine to satiate
its most revered tenet:
solitude. The “eye” grows alone,
single-celled, the only tenant
of the lot, sea-fast though
the name’s a misnomer—
it can’t see. It would be useless
stowed in any sailor’s
socket, but a seamstress
might pluck it for its sheen:
ornamental grape sewn
into a bodice gone unseen
by men; gem for one’s own.
