Well, having massacred an uncountable number of lobsters in the performance of my duties as an Executive Chef, I must say I feel your pain, that is, I have felt the pain of those who now haunt you. Of course, numbed to the predicament of the crawling crustaceans and with my heart set solely on the wants and taste of my diners, I put their suffering aside and dedicated my mediocre talents toward creating the perfect dish. But because it is one of the few foodstuffs in the kitchen that we must actually kill to prepare, aside from the uncomplaining bivalves and vegetables, lobsters do present a flailing reminder that the creature is aware of its demise.
And there is also the routine instances of adding insult to injury. Whereby I would occasionally stoop to jostle the big case of chilling lobsters in the walk-in refrigerator and then listen for them wriggle and strain through the pile of claws and seaweed. I would talk to them and tell them to hang in there, beg them not to die, that soon I would grant them a merciful execution. In my nightmare I used to imagine that one day I would be trapped in the walk-in and the lobster case would bubble over and from out of it would come a lobster godzilla that would take me in its claws and crush me into tiny bits and feed my remains to the thousands of little lobsters crawling about.
So I think it is me they will come after first. You might be spared.
Anecdote aside, excellent poem. Interesting and evocative.
