Catastrophic Molt
—For elephant seals when the top layer of fur and skin
molts, it leaves them unable to swim or feed for a month.
Elephant seals preen in quarantine,
stuck and landlocked in a labyrinthine
of cliff-coves, blubber-vats, corset-baleen.
Pods of weanlings ungulate as they dream
amongst vertebrae of a hundred slaughtered
fin whales. Seals slough roughshod coats, all authored
by bioaccumulation, transferred.
Beach wrack shudders under this terror scene.
Brackish water brines like a toxic tea
absorbing filth, staining the Scotia Sea.
As it sponges, creatures flee from debris,
from the steeping of methyl mercury.
The Cataloger of Smaller Things
—As red algae population explodes, it will increase
melting in Antarctica. This will fuel climate change.
Those lichen on whale bone are smeared and cracked
mustard. These diatoms are two-part trick
boxes, metallic buttons, sequins diffracted
on a gaudy dress. As we age, our studies
sharpen and we become the catalogers
of smaller things, the connoisseurs
of the miniscule. We turn inward, spurn
infinite, reject enormity, uneasy
at our own insignificance. Swaybacked,
we poke at red algae in the snow, packed
like platelets of blood, like droplets splattered
after a coughing contagion contracted.
Jonah’s Icefish
(Neopagetopsis ionah)
Their blue nests, 60 million strong, cover
the Weddell Sea floor, while fathers hover
over their thousand eggs, willing to suffer
endlessly. To overwhelm predators,
we must satiate, overpopulate.
Our houses spread at exponential rates.
We fate all living things to propagate,
pretend the earth is not a sepulture
or a hand over the mouth to smother.
We are gluttonous seals catching souvenir
icefish and murdering just to murder.
Others devour our castoff slaughter.
Paul Brooke is the author of eight books including Pantagruelian: Photographs and Poems of Torres del Paine, The Skáld and the Drukkin Tröllaukin: Photographs and Poems of Iceland, and Sirens and Seriemas: Photographs and Poems of the Amazon and Pantanal. He has published in over 100 literary journals including Scientific American, The North American Review, and The Antioch Review.

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