The Bull Sea Lion
revision draft one
Elliott batTzedek

A dream of an ancestor common to
condor, human, and whale, astounding
bulk, floating grace: flying—
the nature of matter before the invention of falling.

Gravity was less
in Earth’s youth, levity the law
before the weight of battleships and
bombers leveled probability.

And now a bug-faced selkie
in neoprene skin enters the water,
surprised by her soaring, by the sudden
shadow of a black lithe ton.

Muscles frozen rubber—how prey feels.
How mammal flesh, drawn to mammal flesh
considers the mass of his body, yearns
for some ancestral embrace.

I reach my unwebbed fingers to him.

He dives to where I cannot follow.

__________________

revision from a new work workshop. Earlier drafts here