—NPR, January 26, 2018
Not every fish is countable. The unquantifiable shimmers and shakes. Our mobile incompetence woos us, taunts. How could we not see by now? We keep searching for a word to describe miscounted fish. Like failure or fix. Fate seeking synonym for an ocean. But finding only the same patterns we hope will be kind, this time. We mistake a lack of evidence as evidence to the contrary. Nothing is so convincing as an answer. We forgive indiscretion, claiming errant data. We repeat. Recount. This happens with fish. Saltwater dries crystalline and mysterious— we begin innocent, again. Looking at idle flicks of algae, as if expecting truth to appear, dependable like a number. And there: the fish we missed. How ordinary. How rare. Those silly yellow hands.
