The Thompson River steelhead run once numbered
many thousands; now it’s more like ten.
Four decades since I last became encumbered
by guilt from killing one, a mortal sin.

Between the lust for jobs! and rights! and profits!
the other Oncorhynchus species soon
will perish too, our ecosystem’s soffits
lost to the rot of greed and baking noon.

When all the fish are caught and eaten, slain
from rivers, lakes and streams, and from the sea,
we’ll learn that seafood truly feeds the brain
and how much stupider we still can be.

12 March 2023