Choices We Make
Janet Kuypers
1/5-6/24
I wiped my saliva inside my scuba mask to avoid fog
underwater, for with only a snorkel I eventually held
my breath and swam past the people, started counting
the white-tipped sharks sleeping in a perfect row along
the bottom of the Pacific. 1, 2, 3... 8, 9, 10... 28, 29, 30.
I stopped counting as my swim mates feared for me,
swimming with so many sharks. But my only fear
was for their safety from the infringement of mankind—
after stepping in the water at the then-desolate Paradise
Island, where baby sharks and barracuda swarmed my feet,
I rescued fish otherwise caught for food, and rescued cats
from violently abusive homes. I proudly choose their lives —
the Orcas and Humpback whales whose families swam to
Deception Island’s WWII bases, to Sea Lions rushing past me
in the Pacific near a mess of Marine Iguana carcasses at the
Army’s Baltra bases. To Buffalo segregated by electric fences,
to the mass-farmed animals mankind slaughters when they
choose to consume death. When faced with death, I choose life.
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