dogfish | mary oliver

you don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
i don’t want to tell it, i want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

and anyway it’s the same old story - - -
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

mostly, i want to be kind.
and nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

and nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.