losing the sea
today I couldn’t recall
amphipod
sat silent
while my children said
little shrimp
rolled that springy bugger around
in the back of my brain
all afternoon
without a name surfacing
only at night
by the artificial blue glow
searching little shrimp
does it come to me
in zeroes and ones:
amphipod
different foot
it’s been so long since I had sea legs
I’ve lost this basic building block
of 9000 species
all over our watery planet
ubiquitous
fundamental
shameful not to know
my children aren’t familiar with ocean
they take nothing for granted
have to root around for words
(they don’t have breakers swell spray strand dulse urchin anemone holdfast)
they say:
the waves are in white lines like dissolving sugar
like drifts of snow
making do with similes
for what they don’t yet know
