by Suzanne Swanson
when it blunders into the boardwalk, the second-
rate jellyfish, we are not sorry for it, watch amused
as it bumps and bumps the piling, finally getting
the angle right for escape, a vagrant pulsing against
the tide, blurring toward the atlantic, purples subdued
to brown under gathering grey. the cormorants
don’t notice or boredom sets in: they have seen it
a hundred times, know no reward comes from a morsel
of rubbery flesh. somewhere in this salt marsh, tide
runneling dark water, is a salt marsh sparrow, easily
confused with the Nelson’s or the seaside, look close
for the less buffy chest, the strong markings—white
stripes down the back. seeing means letting
the day turn away time, splitting with patience
the spartina from the sparrow, adjusting the eyes
to capture the rustle that turns to one, two, three
possible specimens, lifting off towards another swale
backs to us as if offering binoculars the perfect
perspective for accurate ID. our fantasy. we know
they don’t care, their devotion only to each other, to
the insects and spiders of these muddy flats, to the tiny
spineless marine creatures, the merging of inlet with sea,
how each pulls and pushes the other every single day,
a borderless survival never stopping, not stopping ever.
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