Adriana María Garriga López

Two sharks are nothing
but a hairy melding of burnt flesh and bone
fed off the mossy green grasses of the Atlantic Ocean floor.

They are cornmeal predators, marked with the grease paint
of relatives who sizzled under a composed flame
and then, as now, swam with the fishes
in the Caribbean Sea.

Not a bad after-death,
not a bad place to mingle with beer six pack plastic rings
in with the storm surge tides that puke aerosol cans,
deodorant
and condoms.

You are not my grandmother shark
but you two do make a nice pair.

San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2006