Sea Shanty

We dined upon quahaug clams, oysters and shrimp,
but the sauce tasted funny, the lettuce was limp,
and an onerous numbness in our lips and our legs
immediately suggested we’d been served the dregs
of a past morning’s catch, so we rued our selection
and sought out a mole to back up our detection
of who had slipped up and served us bad shellfish.
What entrepreneur was so greedy and selfish

that he’d risk our lives simply for filthy lucre?
We appealed to the waiters to provide some succor
and spurred on by our pleas and sizable tips,
they gave us proof that our angry sore lips
were the product of clams a few days past their prime,
so we sued that rude restauranteur for his crime.

He was found guilty and is now in the cooler
where if he’d been smarter and a little less crueler,
our clams would have been in the days before serving.
And we all agree no convict’s more deserving 
of a stay in the hoosegow, and because of our plight,
when we’re in a mood to go out for a bite,
we skip all the seafood joints, pass them right by
and go out for a burger or a nice meat pie.

prompt words are slip, selection, mole, dregs, quahaug, immediately and onerous. Image by Louis Hansel on Unsplash.