She’s an aquatic steward,
a salt-streaked PhD,
and exhibits local fauna
in her showcase on the quay,
collecting-and-releasing
across Clayoquot Sound.
A portion of the ocean
animates her tall vitrines,
and shallow dipping tanks
where fish-eating anemones
wave poison-sticky tentacles
to solitary octopus
and bloodless sea stars
circulate saltwater
in fluid-filled canals.
Each living creature’s origin
is demarcated on her map.
They flash their homing beacons.
Come fall, she’ll reinstate
her catch: the aquarium’s
glass walls will liquefy
for all — bar that interloper,
ravener of sunken coral,
the green shore crab.
Lowering her teeming buckets
to the deep, she’ll not return
those grinding claws
only the ghostly carapace.
if you find one on the beach, she says
stamp it out.
_________________________
Fiona Larkin’s poems feature in journals and anthologies, including Magma, The North, Perverse, Finished Creatures, Under the Radar and Best New British and Irish Poets 2018. She was highly commended by the Forward Prizes 2019 in the Best Single Poem category. She organises multi-media events with Corrupted Poetry.