zalophus

Looking at the sealions swimming around and around in the green water of their tank, a person might feel foolish observing these animals so far from their own native place. But then they've come so far in so many ways. They used to be something like a dog, something like an otter, and now look at them: eyes shut, sleek bellies skyward, cruising below the surface like perfect torpedos. When they break the water, the water's refraction always makes for greater displacement than you expect.

What might they be thinking, so far from their beginnings, their home, their bent-sunlight images?

Here swim I, long since neither dog nor otter. I live now ever at sea. I do not wish to claw the earth. My skull is like a wolf's skull and my body like a barbed spear piercing the broad flank of the ocean. I am never where the sun thinks I am. I am somewhere else until I rise and turn, and then I dive again.