**Mettle to Meddle**
*By Stephen Sekula*
He stepped atop the atoll,
was it four years to the day?
A little dog set near the shore,
a shore that tasted both
the ebb and flow of time
and waves
He spoke of bird, of beak, of barnacle,
collected by the shore,
a shore four years and counting
from anything like home
“There is a plan, there is a plan,
get down on bended knee.”
But if between an ape or a man
who uses not his mental faculty,
descended from ape I’d surely
rather be.
