“Adaptability”: Lessons from Costa Rica
Poetry
The red-eyed tree frog has adapted, climbing cecropias on padded toes.
Colleen has adapted
to walking with two fused ankles.
The spectacled caiman has adapted,
gorging on feral hoglets.
Laury, sans Ruth, has adapted
to swallow a widow’s life.
The resplendent quetzal has adapted
to breeding in remnant forests.
Child-bride Boodley has adapted
to loving her old husband’s last neurons.
But, honestly, most have forgotten
we are only animals; most won’t adapt.
Karla Linn Merrifield has had 900+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies, with 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the newly released full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. She is currently at work on a poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars; the book is slated to be published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY).