Axolotls

Strange salamanders patterning
my son’s socks, their external gills waving

as he charges through the house. They are
nearly non-existent in the wild, but here

their tiny pixelated likenesses will smile
on polyester-spandex blend indefinitely.

Their juvenile forms so adorable
no one would suspect the carnivorous

appetites lurking beneath. And
my son’s face, too, is so sweetly blank.

I think they live in Mexico, he says.
He doesn’t know about their drained lakes,

their invaded habitats, their battered bodies
fried and served on crisp greens.

He knows they are named for an Aztec God.
He knows they can re-generate their limbs.

And some day he will know
not all losses are so easy
to recover from.