Daddy said, “This is not what I wanted to hear.
The more I listen the more I fear
that we won't slow our fishing until it's too late,
after every last fish has been served on a plate.
And these new nets you like, they'll catch fish and more.
You'll drag sea lions and dolphins and turtles to shore.”

Then Daddy stopped talking. He just looked around.
Nobody smiled. Everybody frowned.
Daddy said, “This is hopeless. I see it on your faces.
Any change that can come will have to come from other places.”

The men started shouting and jumped to their feet.
They said things to Daddy that I will not repeat.
He pushed through the crowd to take Mommy's hand and mine,
and we rushed out the door into the sunshine.
We walked around the bay, we smelled the sea foam,
we felt a little better by the time we got home.

Daddy's cooler still sat on the kitchen floor
to the left of the table, behind the door.
That one small fish that he had found
still lived in the cooler, swimming around.

“She's lovely,” Mommy said. “She belongs in the sea.
That's where she'd be if it were up to me.”
“We all feel that way,” Daddy nodded and said.
“But in that boat-filled sea she'd just end up dead.”

Then Daddy got angry. “It's all those boats in the bay!
They catch thousands of fish day after day!”
Mommy put her finger across Daddy's lips.
“They're part of the problem, but it's not just those ships.”