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ManateeElectric power plantDestroys the landscape like a stage set Dropped against pale Florida sky, But the outtake makes a warm stream Manatees like to winter in In the brackish estuary, protected from motorboats. They are so tame, too tame, Without natural predators Lacking the polar bear that eats seals; Don't feed them, or they'll come To any human hand. Manatee people linger in beds of seagrass Spout to breathe Not looking so much like mermaids But like everyone's Uncle Max With a cigar and a fedora hat. If separated by mistake A mother manatee and child Will vocalize to each other In one case, for six hours Until the underwater gate was lifted, They were reunited. It's hard not to sentimentalize What I feel for my own daughter Standing on the park's Asphalt trail Watching the manatees surface and turn Like a dream waiting to be born. |
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Issue #26, April, 2002 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.