Shake it before a patch of light:
one dwarf, one lined, one slender.
The new Caledonian, the Eastern Pacific,
and—careful, she’s tumbled to a corner—
Hippocampus Denise, the smallest of the small,
stretching one full centimetre from her Cyrano de Bergerac
snout, over her lumpy coronet, down the bony
plates (two knobs and a spine at each
junction), through the jovial
tail, in, in,
in. The museum owns
3,000. The curators carry them about
just this way—in sandwich bags—
to show off to tourists. They’re dry; try
not to crush them. A team of such creatures
drew Poseidon’s chariot through the depths.

Invisible in seagrass, they bounce
over sponges, pilings and weeds—
latch on. Yank and pull, they won’t
let go, they’d sooner let a current drop them
three oceans away. They digest whole
crustaceans by magic (no stomach, no teeth).
They transport water fairies and cure the worst
ailments (leprosy, infertility). In 1990, in writing,
a scientist confessed, “Seahorses are so
unusual that it can be difficult to accept
that they are fishes.” Right. I forgot.
Aside from all this, they are fishes.

Complicated seahorse courtship: the male turns
bright orange, the female pink. They rise belly-to-belly
from the seabed, grasp at a willowy stalk, and pivot
like carousel ponies. Everyone goes on about
the male and his ingenious pouch: he
incubates the babies. One enthusiastic specimen
bore a brood of 1,572. (If you ask me, he overdid it.)
But after all those strange fish wriggled to the surface,
gulped and zoomed off, mom and dad
resumed their breakfast waltz, dorsal fins trembling

over curly-q tails. My fondness for these creatures
distracts me. I stumble after waking to the kitchen,
uncap the marker, approach the wall, “X”
one box. I’d swim down, way down
for such intimate circlings and gentle
greetings.

from Spinning Side Kick, Véhicule Press, 2011

1. 

   Fiona, thank you. It is not lost on me that you have a seahorse poem I love. Maureen Hynes reminded…

2. 

   Lovely poem! Favourite lines: “her Cyrano de Bergerac/snout, over her lumpy coronet” and “grasp at a willowy stalk, and pivot…

3. 

   Thank you, Alice! I loved it too. And it comes to mind often, which is not common, even for books…

4. 

   I loved this book, Anita, and thoroughly enjoyed reading your thoughts and insights about it. Thank you!

5. 

   Thank you Maureen! I greatly appreciate your comment. And yes, I too, was thinking about the translation & how well…