Swimming With Dog Sharks
There is an Asian man on the subway
He likes swimming with dog sharks
I know this because I just overheard him
He said this to his friend:
“I like swimming with dog sharks,” he said
“It’s nice,” he said
I have never been swimming with dog sharks
It is a regret I didn’t realize I had
I don’t even know what a dog shark looks like
I picture a German shepherd underwater
It is gliding towards me
with fangs exposed
The dog shark has tiny fins
and they are wagging frantically
like so many tails
I should have asked the Asian man
what dog sharks look like
if only so I could picture them better
and relay the details to you
If I was ever in the water with you and saw one
I could say, “Look, there’s a dog shark”
My knowledge of dog sharks would totally impress
(I hope nobody asks any follow-up questions about dog sharks)
I guess I’ll just search “dog sharks” on the Internet
but it’s not the same
I often eavesdrop—it’s something I can’t help
but I’d never overheard anyone
talking about dog sharks before
So I really should have asked that Asian man on the subway
I should have asked him about dog sharks
I think I would have learned something
Michael Crichton
I want to write the Jurassic Park
of Great American Novels
But I’m worried that might actually just be
Jurassic Park
Library
I call the help lines on subway ads
Look for answers in phone books
I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of failure,
and I’m a glossary of defeat
What’s a synonym for all of this?
My life seems beyond definition
—only because nobody has come up
with terminology so bizarre,
vernacular so flawed
I read Web MD entries to satisfy my neurosis
There are sick plot twists in books
about the Bermuda Triangle
that I read as a kid
Josh Sherman does run the @iamdave_hello Twitter account.
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