Somewhere in Indonesia, a tiny seahorse
uses a pink, plastic Q-tip to ride the waves
as if it were a piece of seaweed: supposed to be there.
When the seahorse dies its body will decompose
and feed the organisms of The Deep.
The Q-tip will remain for some four hundred
and fifty years. Perhaps it will help more
seahorses or sea critters get to where
they need to be. Perhaps it will choke one.
Perhaps it will rest on the ocean floor
become buried by eons of sand,
and fossilize alongside a starfish,
for some space explorer in the year 5017 to wonder at,
how such an organism ever existed in nature.
Thea Engst is a poet, bartender and farm girl stranded in a city. Her book, “Drink Like a Bartender” is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Target.
Image by Justin Hofman, originally in National Geographic, reproduced under the Fair Use section of copyright law.
