I was talking to a salmon and the
salmon was talking back, he’s a friend of mine,
about the value of oxygen and
the problem of gasping for breath once you’ve
stepped out of your element to walk in
another’s shoes . . . it occurs to me that
a salmon speaking of sneakers is quite
absurd, but there it is . . . and the salmon
told me of a life he’d spent, a whole day,
as a dragonfly—eaten by a duck,
he assures me—and how blue the summer
sky when one has only that day to live:
we agreed he was a fool to envy my
bicycle, and me to covet his gills.

dmpitchford