Morning Mystery

 

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                                        Slap                

Slap!                                                                    Slap!   

                     Slap!               

 

I stop washing dishes, tune my ear

to the bahia whose vocabulary has not included Slap!

out on the veranda I search for something new and

rude enough to invade our early morning quiet.

 

Slap!

 

Where? My eyes scan across still water

see nothing                  Slap!

There!                                                                          Slap!

stirred up blue grey ripples,

watch, something must be jumping                                                      Slap!

smart enough after years of watching

my eyes follow an imaginary path to                Slap!

 

What?

surprised, I discount the creature I think I see

two foot circle of slick black and white made of fantastic flaps and wings

a dream creature with smiling eyes

questing for the prize, I scan, wondering                      Slap!

it is!

 

A juvenile mobula ray

practicing its flight from the depth of home into the air

Practice! who thinks of animals practicing their moves

working against the forces of sea and air                     Slap!

perfecting a natural instinct to be a leader?

to win a mate?

 

            Slap!

 

Young muscles in training                                            Slap!

over and over, exuberance of power, over and over

practicing

                                    

                       

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Sharon Lopez Mooney, “Morning Mystery”, From Roundtable Literary Journal, Issue  55, ed. Caitlin Chester and Elizabeth Burton, Hopkinsville, KY, 2021