sardine-silver mammals or the mackerel of living

    Dolphin breath is conscious—
so the sardine-silver mammal
wakes in the ocean, waves cresting,
sun on the sea floor in zodiac patterns,
surrounding pod swollen and glistening, clicking,
back and forth, see-saw sounds. Awake,
in the middle, could choose not to breathe again.

    Could choose not to
rake tiny teeth against bottom-dwelling rocks,
never again breach the universe,
leap into space unknown—the air world,
spiral into schools of tuna, swallow whole—
            no blood that way,
never again caressed by seaweed, or
whistle, whistle, whistle
in the dark, and still see.
But it does not choose death,
though it so easily could.

    Though the dolphin has a choice,
it doesn't choose to cease.
The danger of being caught in a fisher’s net
is motive enough, for now, to live.