Sea-Lions

SEA-LIONS, WITH APOLOGIES TO THE ANIMALS, WHO ALSO NEED TO FIND THEMSELVES A NAME THAT REALLY SPEAKS TO THEM

The waves told me

what to call them.

This in a moment of confidence, nobody around,

and they were rushing up and whispering

in those urgent white voices,

showing their teeth

and scribbling madly in sand,

each one rewriting the message of the one before,

In that beautiful, baroquely inefficient way of theirs.

“Our true name is sea-lion.”