A dolphin of a kind, I contemplate

Their constant noising by some click or whistle

Too high for human ears: that sonar missile

With which, obscure and sleek, they navigate;

And how, through humor, they affiliate,

Disarming sharks and mines, and of the gristle

Making distinctly signature each dorsal;

And the human speech they may approximate;

The totem for our counselors and sages,

Insignias for princes, who adapt

Too swiftly to aquariums in cages —

So quick to the performance, so enrapt

To play themselves for little-to-no wages,

As though uniqueness were a periapt.