Lost Territory

I sit up, on guard, sniffing the ocean breeze
But with spine missing I have a tendency to slouch.
What am I checking for, anyway? I've forgotten.
Maybe you can help me, there by the window, in bed, next to me.

Maybe the clam can shed some light on my problem? After all,
it knows quite a bit about scent, and there's that ability to track.

What do you mean? You ask sleepily.Well, how else

do they stay in packs with such shifting fortunes of sand?

What can you tell me you usually edible, bivavlel mollusk?
Do you desire to be with others? Or is it merely
instinct that keeps you from permanent separation?

Do you seek with tenacity, and do you and yours really care?

I've cared, but recently have found doing so absurd.
You slip under the covers and flip me your rump as I ponder
the difficulties of wife with Merlin and surgery on her side.

Surely she's been given these gifts for good reason.

I don't know how she does it. She's never even moved her arms once.
But the results are without question remarkably effective.
One moment I'm poised and sitting upright, then wham!

she's probed, scalped, and removed a perfectly good set of vertebrae.

Next she's got that cone and hat with stars working its mighty incantations.
Merlin sure would be proud. I'm a man, a mouse, a cat, a dog, and lately
I've looked silly on all fours asking to be let out to pee.

Sniffing the breeze amongst her genteel snores and snorts, the significance?

I can only wonder.