Sturgeon Devouring His Son

by Leanne Dunic

For fear of being usurped      

Saturn ate his children

My father taught me how to feed myself

How to gut snapper, rock cod, flounder

He put names to each berry    creature          tree

And spoke of  an ancient fish             that could live over a hundred years

That still live

Sturgeon have endured salmon infested with sea lice           

             lures gasoline fabric foam bottlecaps batteries diapers razors masks

Growing demand for their caviar

Decades ago, as my friend learned of warming oceans, extinctions

And the endless          more   

She declared   with love and seriousness

I have to kill my children                    yet she didn’t

Have the strength       

Now, they’re grown

––with hearts breaking, environmental anxiety

And an app that delivers tuna tataki in forty minutes

To avoid maternity, I swallowed pills

Until I learned of the             estrogen and progesterone

I pissed into the river––the one already weakened 

From extra celsius                  diminished salmon and smelt

The same river where a fisherman took the photograph

I’ve titled       Sturgeon Devouring His Son 

Food scarcity, they say, due to floods, pollution, overfishing––

One must eat child or stone

Tongue on his spawn

A sturgeon survives