Some believed the ocean wasn't alway salty but that our ancestors
had been very sad. They'd been promised a great many things
only to have the fruit drop and their breasts sag. They cried
a lot. When they looked up and bemoaned their fate,
claiming they'd done nothing to deserve all of this roadkill,
the exhaust from their undeservedness formed a talk show
of rain clouds. When they looked upon the ground
and beseeched their feral happiness to stop chewing
at their feet, their displeasure seeded gout weed and prehistoric
thorned things. In this way, our boats were the original forms
of escape and self-help. At first we floated on our ancestors' sadness,
the waters rife with the salt of their tears, but then,
vivre l'evolution, those tears sprouted gills and tails
and small, watchful eyes. It isn't entirely accurate to say
we ate those fish but more like accepted that which we'd inherited.
What we hadn't anticipated was how the eyes of those original tears
would persist, how they'd keep watching.
Copyright © Sue Goyette, 2013
