[Newspoetry] poem

[Anne Bargar]

Otters

have been banging clams on rocks since well before the 1800's,
when they looked at what was happening to their Ohio habitat and said,
"Uh-uh," and left,
'cuz they kept getting trapped, and their habitat was disappearing,
and who needs that?  It takes all the fun out of being an otter,
and an otter can have fun anywhere, so they departed 
and didn't come back for over 100 years.
Then someone trapped a bunch and transplanted them (from Louisiana)
about 8 or 10 years ago, and you know what happens next-
boy otter meets girl otter at the top of a muddy bank somewhere,
and they start playing together in the water, 
and pretty soon they're getting it on.
123 otters then becomes 1700+ (since 1993!)
having gone from being released in 4 watersheds to 
living in 48 watersheds throughout 46 (out of 88) counties.
They seem to like tributaries in sparsely populated areas,
where they can swim and play and eat clams and fish
and slide down riverbanks, and generally run amok.
So, if you go hiking along some river in Ohio,
you might see a river otter floating down the river on its back,
banging a clam on a rock.