Blackwater Pics

The hairy goosefish, cusk-eel larva,

And the bony-eared assfish glitter,

Starred, bluish jewels through divers’ lens

That prove how colorfully inept we are

As names for such intricate things.

You can use the excuse that they’re

Monsters, another inadequate name.

But we’re monsters ourselves, all

You’ve made us, and young, and disguised

As references to physical sensations.

Take the simplest one of us, the simplest,

Smallest, least evocative common noun—

What’s the right price to pay for genocide?

Another news site interrupts. Look at us.

Look at what you’ve done with us. Look

At what you’ve done to us. Once we were

Just waves, just wagging tongues. Now,

Hiding in our infinite categories of number,

We swarm up from the black depths

That to you look like nothing, nothing

On all sides, no light, and then we appear,

Your little, larval, jeweled monsters. Time.