“Two Penguin Chicks Survive in Colony of 40,000”
Headline, Esquire.com June 17, 2019
Two penguin chicks survive,
also some orcas. We counted eight
but some could have been hiding.
We counted the icebergs
too, weren’t sure
how to tally the missing
now that they’re drops in the ocean.
The shadows overhead
we counted, hoping
they were birds,
and the clouds but they shifted,
we kept losing track
and starting over. Jerry radioed
from the jungle:
he thought he heard a frog.
We counted flies
on a dead albatross,
its stomach split and spilling
bottle caps. We counted
the caps, there were
twelve. We couldn’t sleep
so we tried counting stars.
We counted the days
until we could go home
but like the stars
and the bits of plastic
in the Pacific gyre
the number was immeasurable.
A live fish burst
from the water, arcing silver
and we all got on our knees
and tried to count our blessings.
We counted the seconds
between breaths, the cans
on the shelves. Our fingers
and toes, the lines
on our faces, but
they were blurry. I strung out
the beans on my plate, end
to end
and counted
before I ate them,
one by one.
Nancy Squires
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