People passed a dolphin around, children’s game,

show and tell, here, my turn, taking selfies, Yours

Truly With Dolphin, not too big a guy, look, round

and round, stroking as if it were a healing relic, round

and round until it died

and they lay it on the sand,

the body small and smooth, contained in itself,

and they walked away, carrying their lives, leaving

the exhausted body called by some Franciscana,

its skin like the simple cloak of the saint, though

we love it to death, its death, our own.