Summer of the Shark
A seal population explosion
Has sharks hunting close to this beach.
It’s a hot day, I’d love to go swimming,
But I want to keep out of their reach.
News reports about fins in the surf
Are enough to give anyone pause.
I’d rather my sun-and-sand selfies
Did not look like outtakes from Jaws.
Though a dip would be cool and refreshing,
Shark bites take forever to heal.
So I’m just wading up to my ankles,
Trying hard not to look like a seal.
Chris O’Carroll was Light’s featured poet in the Summer/Fall 2015 issue. He has also published poems in Angle, The Asses of Parnassus, Free Inquiry, Lighten Up Online, and The Rotary Dial, among other print and online journals, and in Poems for a Liminal Age, the new international anthology published in support of Doctors Without Borders, and the upcoming The Great American Wise Ass Poetry Anthology.