Today's poem is by Catherine Esposito Prescott

Earth Day, 2020
       

In quarantine, we noted how the raccoons use
the garden hose at night and shift the nozzle

to their desired setting, which is shower,
a gentle, cleansing water, which is opposite to the jet

that cleans their scat off the backyard deck
under the fence of fishtail palms.

In quarantine, saw-toothed sharks—prehistoric
predators known for living in the depths of ocean

far from humans, swam close to shore
along with nurse sharks and bull sharks.

In quarantine, manatees surfaced in pairs,
dolphins leapt out of the water three, four

at a time without the promise of snacks in sight,
no prize, no bucket of fish, which tells us

something about reward, a thing given
for forced labor, and another about joy—

how it comes on its own, comes without us
begging for it—how it's more like a country, wide

and prosperous, than a summer fair. Our blind spots
are infinite. What we don't know is more cave than dot.

When was the last time I moved my body—for no camera,
no post—for nothing more than the rapture of being?

How do I know the raccoons don't find pleasure
in their hose shower? Why do I believe their paw prints

are evidence of trespass and escape,
not of skilled, choreographed feet—

every mud-print not a direction, not a clue,
but a turn toward ecstasy?

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Copyright © 2023 Catherine Esposito Prescott All rights reserved
from Accidental Garden
Gunpowder Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission