The Greenland shark has the longest life expectancy of all vertebrate animals known to science.

Swimming adagio
through frozen seas, you grow
far slower than a hickory
and, by some wicked trickery,

are the oldest vertebrate
on earth. Is that so great?
Perhaps. Or maybe not.
It would depend a lot

on whether you’re go-getting,
letting your gills down, jetting
through the Atlantic ocean
or lost. You haven’t a notion

you were a youth when Bruno
was born. Perhaps you do know
the fact that you’ve outlasted
the hoariest whale that blasted

its songs across the sea
or a bivalve thought to be
five hundred seven years old.
While swimming through the cold,

you’re surely not aware
of the net which soon will snare
your ancient bones. They’ll floor us.
“Amazing!” we will chorus.

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