The Otters One Night
They came from the salty purr
of the ocean like slick eel dreams
a mother and two pups, moving
up the shaggy rocks to drink
from a stream that lopes down
the mountain to meet them.
Three whiskered chins resting
together on the smooth pebbles,
their rough tongues greedily
lapping away the stiffness of salt.
To look away now would be to lose
them and of course I do when,
at the mother’s single soft bark,
they sidle back down the gray
scales of night and into the water
like oil meeting oil.
We may meet someday, you and I,
and we may even talk about things
that matter and let our masks slip
a little, but who I am (really) is still
on that dock watching for any ripple
on the dark shining water.
Quinn Bailey is a poet, naturalist, and wildlife tracker who feels most at home wandering the wooded hills and rocky shores surrounding the Salish Sea where he was born and raised. Quinn’s work has appeared in a number of publications including Camas, Deep Wild, and Big Sky Journal. He is the author of the poetry collection The Currents of the World (Homebound, 2020).
Header photo by Pexels, courtesy Pixabay.
