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This week’s poem, Maya Critchfield’s “Oysters,” tells of desire and, perhaps, power. I love this poem’s simple refrains, its spare and spartan phrasing, and the tang of ambivalence that lingers in its salt. 

Maya Critchfield is an artist and writer from Southern Maine. She writes softly about hard things through the lens of a naturalist upbringing, tempered with a degree in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic. Her work has previously appeared in or been commissioned by Woven Utopia, A CLEARING and SICK Magazine. She was a 2024 Creative Fellow at the Maine Women Writers Collection. Her first book of poetry, Little Death Poems & three essays, was self-published in 2025.

Poets, please note that submissions to Deep Water are open now and through the end of the year. Deep Water is especially eager to share poems by Black writers, writers of color, indigenous writers, LGBTQ+ writers, and other underrepresented voices. Submit your credits at mainewriters.org/deep-water

The only oysters I’ve ever eaten
were fed to me

by men who came prepared
and willing to share their bounty.

Same place,
same time,

a year between feedings.

A different knife
and different hands

prized the same animal’s shell open
and both times

I ate

with the same hunger
for the same salt.

– Maya Critchfield

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. DEEP WATER: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “Oysters,” copyright 2021 by Maya Critchfield. Reprinted from Little Death Poems, it appears by permission of the author. Submissions to Deep Water are open now and through the end of the year. For more information, go to mainewriters.org/deep-water.