He had just begun

to believe all

human beings

are inherently good

when he finds the box.

Half-submerged, the box

is baited with a rotting

carcass of a boto.  It attracts 

a swarm of paracatinga,

the ruthless carrion fish.

Columbians taught 

the locals how to build

and prepare the trap.

Most Brazilians do not

even like paracatinga.

Downriver, he finds 

a pink dolphin alive, 

bound and tied dockside,

surname carved into her flank. 

Its baby dead in the shallows.

He cuts the rope and frees her.  

She swims under her baby,

tries to elevate it to breathe.  

He cannot help but hang 

his head in shame.

He doesn’t want to accept

the fact: people are pure evil;

they cannot see the cruelty 

of their own hands,

their own sick mechanisms.

He climbs the slippery slope

to the fisherman’s house,

rope in hand, knife in sheath,

and pounds hard.  He thinks, 

I am conscience knocking.

“Bring your daughter,” he says.

He descends to the dock

and makes the fisherman 

watch the mother and the calf.

“Sit,” he says, “sit and think.”

The daughter nestles into his lap

as the mother nuzzles her dead

calf.  Sobbing deep and aching,

the daughter breaks.  The father

repeats, breathe, just breathe.