Ode: Intimations of Immortality Recollected From a Recent Trip to the Dallas Aquarium

Of late I was privy to that scummy hovel,
that breeding ground of licentiousness,
the Dallas Aquarium.
Yeah, so I saw the bottom of some sharks,
and a three-toed sloth (The very name is a sin!),
and some jellyfish.
I can find no argument against warming the globe
if it means wiping these inane things off the planet.

Finding my system, and, to a degree,
my disposition, restored by an admittedly decent lunch
served by the purveyors of the establishment,
I was again downcast upon exiting the room
to find a bunch of children staring at a manatee.
A manatee! A cow-eyed nothing with whiskers!
Mother mammalia, who gave us the lion,
the cheetah, the opossum, and the chimpanzee,
how far you have fallen.

Now get out of my way, you slavish yahoo.
You're blocking my view, and they're going
to feed the sea otters in a couple of minutes.