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Death Fish in Key West

Scientists describe it as an event
In the hot paradise of Key West

Condos festivals hotels
Dancing feet under bells of lights
I’ve sung Margaritaville there
Myself

Beneath the docks

Pan fish spin in the new green pea sea
Mad somersaults
Alone
To their own kind of tambourine

Bring out your Dead
Bring out your Dead

14-foot Swordfish swish their tails
Beach themselves by the dawn of rails
Swim in the sandpaper sun’s preferable agony
A woman stands by cries and mutters
“I’m so sorry”

Reaches for his folded-over fin
Comfort to the roadside beggar

Sting Ray does the butterfly
Chops atop the ocean’s surface
Charges something unseen beating its wings
Battering the space where waves dot the sky
As if it were an archangel screaming
Stop it! Stop It!

To the Great False Prophet Anthropomorphism

Animals and plants are as human
As we
Without fingers and hands to see

All creatures speak from a conscience
Possess morals
If we’d listen from beyond our own shortcomings
And denial

The Key West fish are calling us
In plain language

Help us help us
We’re boiling to death.

Copyright © Robert Trezise Jr.

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Book: Reflection on the Important Things