Conservation Mission

A fever held me, divine certainty, hot dry pillow voice telling me:

“Go to the Aquarium.” Yes, I will yes, at any cost, the New Age hum

the dread and awe and nearly forty face in convex arcs of plexi,

the terror of the rising tides and joy of saying maybe, yes, you’ll study fish

be a scientist whose life is spent in thrall to gills at war with our convenience,

screaming STOP but taking strength from simply knowing such strange facts as:

this fish sports a toothy tongue, and these sharks, unlike some, may rest.

Do not be afraid. Rowan, still only three, knows that coral dies and bleaches white,

but to know a fact, to see a fish, to feel the rain and see the penguins proudly wet,

Is only joy. Is only, only joy. Is only joy. Is only joy. Is only joy. Is only, only joy.