Spieden Island, San Juans Boat Tour, Washington

Among the many mannered spy toys
rendered to make
the viewer less visible

to the viewed—e.g., binocs, mics, mini-
cams, my high-strung home
security system bleeping

in tongues when I drive away--
the ones I love most
are those pricey round owl-eyed

sunglasses
Jackie O. found for her famous
face, a low-tech way

to watch the watchers back
unwatched.
Behind the look of almost eye-

patches awarded the post-op burn victim,
bivouacked by her life
and times and more than,

something there was that widowed a people.
See now how our tour guide nudges
up her nose bridge the neon-green

wrap-arounds of her perspective.
The mother and son whales
are celebrities.

Nikons, iphones raised to
follow the animals' scimitar fins
slicing in tandem through still water:

the mother's
white on black "eyespot" oval
alters a pattern I had in mind.

Our leader is called Katherine
or Kathleen or Kath or Katie or Kay.
She tells us "it's the Sunglass Hut

mega mogul who owns
that two mile island across the bay."
The Frames of Your Life.

"He's a very private person,
all Humvees with machine guns but," she adds,
"I'd really like to meet that guy,

one naturalist to another."
Where are you from? What is your favorite
part of the country? When I spot three

small black shapes
on shore, cat-sized, with pointy
bulbous rumps

like the rear headlights of a vintage
Cadillac, Kate tells me they're imported
Japanese mini-deer, brought here

for exotic game hunting, brain-children
of the island's previous owner,
John Wayne.

The Duke dreamt of private
shooting through these archipelagoe'd
waters

of a western Washington day. Mouflon sheep
and goats from Ghana,
equally displaced, make

at dusk the best of
the island's gritty barren side.
In True Grit, though Wayne

falls from his horse,
drunk again,
about hunting he was never wrong,

the asshole. Which America
do you love the most? Think
how it seemed to the animals,

my father says on the ferry way back.
Something there was, a people,
required.

The deer terrified by this below-hoof hardness
moving not right for so long
and then rock and sand and sun

bright paining and the feeder
comes no more.
In the old movie, it's the fatherless girl

who says, Who knows
what's in a man's heart.
Also, glare shellacs

the open oil dribble from our boat
peacock purple, apple green.
Put on your dark glasses.

America, which America
do you hate the most?
Some animals stay.

Others awayed by men. In the sandy places
many of our black shapes
shot down.

Several species have been removed. Hold on
to railings as you disembark. This way,
little syllable, this way.