Poems by Linda Rodriguez
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The Amazon River Dolphin
by Linda Rodriguez
Linda lives in a lushly treed and watered metropolis between rivers and states Kansas and Missouri, both named after the indigenous peoples who were here when the Europeans came with their crosses, guns, and smallpox.
The sudden pink shape
surfacing in black-water lagoons
shocked explorers.
All dolphins share man’s
thumb and fingerbones,
but these also wear his flesh.
When the river overflows
and floods the varzea,
these dolphins travel miles
to splash in the shallows
amongst buttress-roots of giant
rainforest trees.
The waters abate, trapping fish,
dolphins never.
A lamp burning dolphin oil
blinds. At night
the pink-flesh contours melt and blur.
The flipper extends the hidden hand
to lift its woman’s torso
to the land. An Eve,
born each night from the black Amazon,
roams the dark banks for victims
to draw to the water and death.
Taboo to the Indians,
this pink daughter of the river’s magic
always looks, to explorers,
like she’s smiling.
© Linda Rodriguez