Leslie McGrath: Baby Hippos, the Rain & Other People’s Pain

There are worse ways to waste time
than watching videos of baby hippos
 
cavorting like fey gray beach balls
in huge water-filled tanks. Thanks
 
to improvements in underwater
photography we can see the hippo clearly above
 
and below the waterline. We see through rain
even though the brain knows each drop distorts
 
the light, piecing the image together
into something we recognize. 
 
The pain of others works this way too. 
Their fever, fear or grief, we cannot feel it
 
but we can’t help but see it. In that sense
their pain is here with us, within us.

Copyright 2020 Leslie McGrath. An earlier version of this poem was published in Peacock Journal and republished in Feminists.