Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny

"How would you like it
if I were dancing with a dead shark?"
My five-year-old daughter asks
from the back seat.

        And I remember an old lover
        who after late night studies,
        dissections, wrapping small sand sharks
        in Saran wrap to store in his dorm room
        fridge, stopped in the middle
        of everything to ask if I could check him
        for pharyngeal gill slits.

She reads from her book,
Creatures from the Deep,
shouts, "Their teeth grow back!"
And bites the two-year-old
sleeping soundly beside her.

        Requiem shark fetuses
        are intra-uteral cannibals
        consuming their less developed siblings.
        Pregnant for the first time, I was enormous.
        Twins were suspected, never found.

Passing the shopping center, the 7-eleven,
we keep moving.
My gill slits long since sealed,
I still never sleep,
moving only to keep from drowning.

Ann Russek - 2000