MICHELLE BITTING Glass Bottom Boat

MICHELLE BITTING

Glass Bottom Boat

Because there's so much color to admire below but feeling a little sick on my bench with the swaying, our stalled and stationary drift, I had to look down through glass with the other ogling families in hoodies and parkas, the better to see where shoals of orange Garibaldi swarmed through streaming algae, soft as in slow-motion dreaming. You cannot fish particular species protected by the state, our captain said. And we nodded in silence. It always heartens me to hear it: For he will pluck my feet out of the net in the wide and delicate pond of humankind, if only such care were taken with us all.