Taxonomy

"Taxonomy"

By Brett G. Palmer

Seagulls gather in crowds to comb the shoreline,

send small crabs scuttling past the tide 

as emerald water churns rhythmically to a slow,

saltwater heartbeat, covering the coast in a repetitious 

static-crash. 

Beach worms burrow narrow tunnels in the sand

that bubble over as water washes over their entrances, 

lapped by foam, a sea nettle floats ashore — 

wispy arms coiling down the sand like wires.

Discarded mussel shells dot the embankment — 

stone crabs peek beneath a swarm of minnows, 

algae blooms on a durable carapace of brown

and red chitin as if it were a sea-rock.

Lone, bottlenose dolphin crescendos in-and-out

of its water world, taking breaths of air through

a blowhole. The seven, sinistral whorls of a 

lightning whelk forms a rigid spiral on

rock rubble overgrown with seaweed — whose colony 

stretches the shelf and deeper water. King mackerel 

stalks extensive reefs outside the Gulf Stream as it 

sends schools of fish and sperm whales west to 

the Sigsbee Abyssal Plain, where a pod’s sonorous echo

signals a swift dive past a forest of octocoral arms, 

furled with snake stars, among the unrecognizable ruins

of a former metropolis:

Distant sound of a buried, broken flute. 

Absent aroma of flowers in a sponge-garden. 

Lost relics of creatures that lived on land.