The shoals of silver fish, hundreds of them, glide en masse around
and around the huge glass pillar of water, glinting in the artificial light,
sardines, the favorite meal of almost every predator in the sea.
The fish swarm together for safety, navigate between their neighbors
with their tiny sensors, neuromasts, to keep from bumping. Turning
in synch, slipping in and out in the miniscule spaces that open and close
between them, their mouths gape serenely, effortlessly scooping up
plankton as they go.
Out there in the sea, dolphins gang up, hunt them,
round them up like wolves with sheep, into a ball of food, dart in at them
from every side. Whales show up and glide right through the ball,
their mouths open for the treat, and seabirds dive, handfuls of silver fish
sliding down their long gullets. Humans net them up by the thousands
and gulls show up at the end for the torn morsels floating on the surface.
But here in the aquarium I stand mesmerized, lost in time, fall into a trance,
watching, swimming, and then I see it: one sardine, going the other way.
Its sensor working double time, it never bumps another fish.
It doesn’t even stay at the outer edge near the glass but darts along
full speed amidst the imperturbable, endless school. What
is she thinking? My eyes follow it a complete circumference,
four or five minutes, and still she doesn’t seem to get it. She must
get it. She is going the wrong way on a 20-lane freeway.
Like that dream where I fly between trees effortlessly at full speed,
the trees moving back instantly, silently, to let me through,
dreaming, perhaps, of escape, to live another way,
where one may swim in peace, without responsibility
to the shoal, where an endless sky of sea
waits, a break-out, a quiet feat of insurrection.
—
Gail Rudd Entrekin has published six books of poetry, the latest being Walking Each Other Home (Longship Press). She is editor of the online environmental literary journal Canary (canarylitmag.org) and Poetry Editor of Hip Pocket Press. Her poems have been shortlisted for six established awards including the Northern California Book Awards and won the Women’s National Book Association Prize. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems are widely published.
