- Mr. Quass and the Crustaceans
Whales the color of milk have washed ashore in Germany, their stomachs clogged full of plastic and car parts. Imagine a creature half as big as a football field—the magnificence of the largest brain
of any animal—modern or extinct. I’ve been trying to locate my fourth grade science teacher for years— Mr. Quass—who gave us each a crawfish he found just past the suburbs of Phoenix, before strip malls
licked every good desert with a cold blast of Freon and glass. Mr. Quass who played soccer with us at recess, who let me observe my snappy crawfish in the plastic blue pool before class started.
I’d place my face to the surface of the water and check if it still skittered alive. I hate to admit how much this meant to me, the only brown girl in the classroom. How I wish I could tell him
how I’ve never stopped checking the waters— the ponds, the lakes, the sea. And I worry because I’ve yet to see a sperm whale, except when they beach themselves in coves. How many songs must we hear
from the sun-bleached bones of a seabird or whale? If there was anyone on earth who would know this, Mr. Quass, it’s you. Even bottle caps found inside an albatross corpse can make a tiny ribcage whistle
when the ocean wind blows through it just right. I know wherever you are, you’d weep if you heard this sad music. You first taught us kids how to listen to water—I’m grateful for each story in its song. [End Page 135]
Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s collection of nature essays, World of Wonder, is forthcoming with Milkweed, and her fourth book of poetry, Oceanic, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon. She is poetry editor of Orion and is professor of English at the University of Mississippi.