Manatee

The manatee’s slow, heavy dignity   

His movements, careful, searching, grazing, sure 

Magic-porridge-pot-snout digging for more 

Mournful, shadowed, aged eyes, stare darkly 

He’s pulled by a deep curiosity   

Unwary giant, close to the shore 

No enemies, a friend on the sea floor   

Rising, ponderous, poised, just so he can see 

But he rises to a hull’s black shadow 

Drawn by the spinning of blurred propellers 

He hears it, feels it, a pulse rippling  

His huge flanks. Rising, rising, shallow 

His grey skin, his short flippers, his whiskers  

A human evolution of scarring