Dolphin Poem

A dead bottlenose dolphin
Lies dead on the beach in Ocean City
His tongue lolls out
Of the side of his mouth
As though he were making
A playful expression
Laughing at a joke that you and he
Both find particularly funny
Could the joke be that you are both here
In Ocean City, surrounded in some sense
By an Ocean
But an ocean bereft of water
No room or means to move
To live in the way you are accustomed
Or not even accustomed
Because how could anyone really be accustomed
To a feeling that they felt
In their dreams of swimming
The dreams they had before-
When they themselves were dreams
The dolphin lies dead, his tongue
Hanging to the side of his mouth
His jagged teeth are visible
But they have become ornaments
They are a symbol for a metaphor
For a tool that became something
More, or less than, a tool
Something that has no practical purpose
That no longer assembles or disassembles
But is stationary
Open to interpretation
Dead on the beach in Ocean City
The dolphin’s eyes stare
And you stare back
You stand in Ocean City
On the beach
And when you breathe in you know
There is no water