i. Platynereis dumerilii leaves home
Bristle worms spawn at moonrise, but their habits are being disrupted by light pollution. They are tested in labs to better understand how their ‘body clock’ works.
I bristle worm nose along through balmy seas,
drift in long days and basted nights.
I wormwait for moonfeel that slick-slimy loving, pale
shine fucking, lunartic spawning, the release…
Do you know it? Do you know it is like nothing
else in this world? We together feel the luminosity
drift across the seabed, lured down into salt
by ripplehooks. We feel it. We burst open in the most
frenzy, we sing all our dreams, all our hopes,
all our futures up up up. Do you know it?
No. No, of course not. No, you poor luneless…
Poor you, poor me. Ripped from my Napoli coral
by rubber-fingered, white-coated worms-in-disguise,
scrabbling. Poking. Shining lights in my
becoming, and I release my dreams, my hopes,
my futures to the always electric, always summer.
Where are my children? Will they know the moon?
You call it time keeping. You search
for a clock. You want the secret. Yet even as I lie
here waiting for the metallic moon, false orb,
even as you reach into the inner monologue, I want
you to feel it. Feel it. Poor luneless, let me
show you how to live wormlike in the moment.
Let me show you – poised, sexy, expectant – how it feels
to be loved by moonlight, and how to love it back.
ii. balaenidae’s love song interrupted
The mating song of baleen whales evolved to traverse many hundreds of miles, yet is now often disrupted by large shipping boats and other vessels.
time now for mumble hum
call across fathoms
down depths steady good
good hum yes good hum
belly sound slow
nice come to me come
alone so long now
I echo for you
I echo for you
I echo for you
why do you not hear?
why do you not swim?
here where we can love
in the water my love in the hum
I echo for you
I echo for you
why do you not come?
bigger anger hum rumble
cuts through water
here where we could love
slices my song in two
sends your half down
down depths jagged no
no answer no response
echo no echo lost
echo no echo lost
echo no echo lost
no love in the water
my love in the water I hum
I echo for you
no echo lost echo
why do you not hear?
why do you not swim?
why do you not come?
iii. the lover of litoria ewingii versus the car
The male tree frog sings at a specific pitch to attract a female mate – the lower the voice, the larger and more successful the male. However, noise pollution from traffic forces the male frog to sing at a higher pitch, which research is beginning to show results in fewer trysts.
sweetheart
sweetheart
sweetheart
HONK
(why do my frogman lose his somber?)
(why do he sing so honeyed high?)
(why do his chasm chest not work?)
sweetheart
sweetheart
sweetheart
GROWL
(where is my lover?)
(where is my lover?)
(where is my lover?)
sweetheart
sweetheart
sweetheart
SQUEAL
(where lies my deep base frogman lover?)
(why do he shun our keel and pitch?)
(why do he lose our strong low language?)
sweetheart
sweetheart
sweetheart
CRASH
(where is my lover?)
(where is my lover?)
(where is my lover?)