A Clutch of Mammals

Hudson Review, The, Winter 2004 by Hilberry, Conrad

I check the dark canal for manatees

and find them sometimes, great

sea cows, hot tubbers lolling here,

hides murky except for white propeller scars

or a patch that might be lichen

there behind the eye. They draw me,

five bodies rolling in a lethargy

of longing, drifting down

to chew the bronzy weeds, I guess,

then lifting their nostrils, three pairs in a row,

to sneeze out stale air

and suck some sultry oxygen

back in. They fluke the surface, while I perch

on the concrete ledge,

hoping to slide my bare foot down

some belly flesh. What does it say of me

that these mermaids allure me?

Which part of me, which self, drifts over

every evening, ready to slide in here

among the manatees?

In the salty dark, we're moved by some

shapeless desire-no barracuda lust

for flesh, no migratory

edict driving us to thrash

and leap upstream. The open sea blows huge

out there, white circles

curling on the crest of waves

like eyes that notice momentarily

our piece of shore-a rocking

catboat, mangroves, an egret hunkered

on a post. The eyes dismiss us and are gone.

Left behind, we wheel

in the shallows, hide to hide.

No fancy principles. hot water bubbling

from a power plant?

We'll take it. Or a sad canal

like this one, a place to duck away from blades

and the metal roar that twists

the glancing symmetries we knew.

We're a clutch of mammals, not that cold codfish

dropping five million eggs

in mid-Atlantic, hoping some travelling

sperm will find them out. A vegetable

lassitude leads us

to drifting strands of chlorophyll,

an underwater meadow where we graze,

weightless ruminants,

upended, chewing the ends of time.