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.
