poetry
 
ICHTHYOSAURS FEEDING
 
(published in the Aug./Sept. 2005 issue of "Prehistoric Times")
An Ichthyosaur cow and her pod have cornered
a lagooning school of silver-scaled fish.
Agitating outboard tails, they cut loose,
the spiral cloud smashing.

A nod and the cow's snout swings wide,
toothy arc squared by jaw length,
chopsticking a glittering fish.
A shake -
as if to shake it dry,
as if to shake the eyes out -
and down it goes,
and she crows with a grand outside loop,
shooting into the milky blue

- making way for the rest to deftly plunder -

zooms back in to further undo,
snapping down another one, or two,
then pops to the mercury ceiling,
and there draws down a lungful of oh-too-rich air,
then from her reflection
recoils, acrobatic,
and knocks fish this way, that,
happily extracting bright bounty at will.

Upcoast currents deport the silver school at last,
amnesiac to its decimation.

Sun lulls the pod, fish-drunk, to spend
the day wrapped in gibbous lagoon.

The cow parries dopey, double-belly suitors,
diverting them to sisters, then
finally flaunting ventral white,
selects -
cheloniate paddles slapping,
broadcasting satisfaction over the sunny bed.