They say the language of dolphins
obeys the Law of Brevity,
but no one knows if a side flip
signifies a desire or an order.
For me it would not matter,
your wish being my command.
Your clicks and whistles still resonate
to the tip of my dorsal fin,
and so I swim beside you,
rolling in unison without words,
following your every gesture
like a shadow along the sandy bottom
of our shallow sunny sea.
There is no other way
for I have no legs to walk
upon that strange forbidden grade
that rises from the world we know
unto the mysterious dry seascape
where the current of my life
could never flow. Into
water we are born, salty
as blood and tears,
and in the sea we live
and love and leave too soon,
obeying the Law of Brevity.
You beckon me deeper
as you know I long to follow
the gulls who swim the sky
with their wondrous fins outstretched
and call me with their piercing cries
from the unknowable place beyond.
