SEA URCHINS

Sea urchins, with mouths like Diogenes lanterns.
River otters swim facedown and eat on land.
Sea otters swim on their backs and eat on water
using their chests as tables, they're
madly hammering clams with rocks.
I think of this same stretch of ocean
up and down this coast—from Baja
to the Bering Sea, ah yes, teaching me
of the return, the return. Prodigal.


7/25/1981
Pt. Townsend, WA
added 9/15