But the language of sharks is difficult

enough to master. Few try. Few can boast,

without pheromones, or La Mer’s occult

craft, that they grok a gill flap’s flutter; most

basic sound in their ten-million year old

tongue. Their poems unfold in waves, music

few of us No-gills can fathom. I told

that joke once to a Queen Mum, a mystic

Itchy Mouth, who chortled. Get a Queen Mum

to laugh, love, and the Seven Seas are yours

until, for a bowl of soup, ten-million

years are snuffed out. Just like that: going numb

in the surf, calling and … Stand on the shores

of all the seas. Call. None will answer. None.