Shrimp Preparation

Place your fingers just behind
the joint at the base of the orange
brain, and pinch and pull
the head off. Then, peel back
three translucent strips along the three
main segments in the abdomen.
Finally, with your thumbnail,
pinch the meat from the tail
and pull off the exoskeleton;
if you have peeled the strips correctly,
the entire thing comes off, taking the legs
and swimmerets with it.
                                             Next, to de-vein,
stick the tine of a fork and slide it
along where the spine would be.
Instead, out pops a string of gut.
Some of them will have a light
tautened string, while others are
rich and loose. It’s as if they had eaten
just before dying. Yes, if I were
a shrimp, I would eat all the time
to ensure that whatever ate me
would have to go to extra lengths
to make it all very civilized.