Jan Steckel

  

      Flipper-Footed Revels

                 … the dungeon tunnels of sea lion love

         their ceaseless theater of whispers and hoarse cries!

                                     ­– Steve Arnston

Hunkering,  heaving, roaring, sneezing,

sea lions lurch to spume-music,

rubbing haunches, snuggling shoulders.

Hoarse roars, slow and heavy breaths,

grunts, groans, barks, moans,

a ceaseless marine-adjacent symphony.

Deep in the limestone honeycomb,

pinnipeds surge and ebb,

intertwingling among anemones.

Chitons glitter, hermit crabs scramble

for cover, sea stars freeze in place.

Limpets peer through their keyholes.

Sea lions’ kelp and algae love grows larger

than empires and more stolid,

deeper than sea floors, wider than horizons.

Nearly a year later, they’ll squirt out

pups like obese watermelon seeds,

into the salty and saturated air.