by Matthew King

The salmon circle in their pen, the seals outside it,
one obsessed with finding a way out, the other in.
There’s nothing these salmon would know as food to see it
in open seas where there are no pellets but the seals,
their hearts set on the salmon, have known them from the start.

The salmon can’t consider what the seals are to them.
There is only one thing they know and know they know it
(in peril they’ll learn too late what it was they knew best):
a way must be got to the other side of the fence;
by the contour they know they’re confined and will be caught.

They feel caught in their flesh already. They’ll be eaten
either way, before or after death—they don’t know that.
They don’t know what it is to die and won’t avoid it.
They know: to get away, to not be caught. They can’t know
the seals are caught outside, caught for good, they got away—

Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto, Canada; he now lives in what Al Purdy called “the country north of Belleville”, where he tries to grow things, counts birds, takes pictures of flowers with bugs on them, and walks a rope bridge between the neighbouring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry. His photos and links to his poems can be found at birdsandbeesandblooms.com. He is on twitter/x: @cincinnatus_c_.