Barnacles

I first fell in love with barnacles on City Island in the Bronx. Traveling the bridge between the island and the city, a fellow biology student and I stopped at the side of the road and hopped the guard rail onto a tiny wedge of rocky beach. The sun was setting and it was cold ... it might have been fall ... It was a quite spot despite the proximity to the road and we sat silently. There was a chatter which could be mistaken for the lapping of Long Island Sound on the rocks, but that wasn't it. It was the barnacles ..... breathing. When the water brushed their tightly pinched carapaces, they opened with a click sending up a fan of gills ... taking a breath while they could ... waiting patiently for the next.