Fittingly, the first of them arrivedin disaster, as, like a whirlpool,only disaster spirals about them—As dawn gilded the bay after a nightof squall-stoked swells, we beheld them likea haggard omen visited upon us by the tide:not a single cow, otter, or seal could remainincurious of the whale-sized driftwoodthat they rode here wind-quickenedatop the waves, but before long thoughwe grasped that they know only to flouttheir anatomy’s boundaries, for how elsecould they dare the ocean to reach these floesand snowy sands, and, plainly lacking flukesor fins to scull home, strand themselves here?Granted, they are resourceful, to and frothe shore scouring for driftwood, from which,somehow, they sparked light and warmth;nonetheless, their frailty abounds—From the shallows, we could watch their skinblue from damp and blizzard, spy howtheir number thinned, gaunt and stiff limbspiled over with sand, how their sick laid proneto the nibbling teeth of foxes, yetnever in the maw of an orca devouring a calf,neither in the eyes of a cormorant, gullet full of fish,nor in the face of an otter flecked with urchinhad we witnessed anything like their habitualbarbarity—I remember watching cows draggedand beached on shore, their bodies methodicallybutchered to the bone, my mate’s skin torn offas she writhed her tail, the twin spurts eruptingfrom her opened back with each dying gasp,my sight stained red as her life gushed outinto the water, and, as they took her apart,their blood-splattered ardor—This slaughterfinding us nearly thirty winters ago, back whenevery cow, otter, and seal had to learn survivor’swisdom: trade your curiosity for fear.After they devised their escape from the island,we thought that we could reclaim our peace,returning to the lives we had before they came,relish unbothered the last of the summer kelp,the sea rocking us, bellies filled, to sleep,sun glints skittering wave-to-wave after days of fog,until again, wind at their tail, they dotted the offing,our dwindled herds yet dwindling as more and morethey arrived to haul us life-robbed from the water.Now I am the last of the sea cows, my heart’scontinued beating, my tail’s propelling labor,my streamlined existence all become hopelessdefiance of our disappearance. Departing seawardinto a sapphire void, I speak a vanishing tonguenow no one else understands to spite the silenceclosing over us forever, entrusting this accountto my bones that will litter the seafloor, my eye socketssoon home to crabs who will never glimpse a sea cow.