The Midnight News
by Jon Caswell
Say good-bye to the pupfish,
He’s gone and hardly missed;
No one knows why he deserves it,
He just no longer exists.
Without knowing the pupfish at all,
He is gone and surely forgotten:
No fins waving in the current,
His bubbly breath stamped forbidden.
The fish-counting scientist insisted
There were no survivors.
But of what were there no survivors?
Our toilets flushed into their living rooms?
Fish-counting divers?
Say good-bye to the fishpup,
Ignoble and scaly dish
That lived into the twentieth century
When men couldn’t talk to fish.
In the way we think about Nature,
It’s just another kink,
Someone—pupfish, man or eagle—
Has to become extinct.
Which line from the poem most clearly expresses its theme that human activity causes animals to become extinct?
"No one knows why he deserves it"
"When men couldn't talk to fish"
"There were no survivors"
"He is gone and surely forgotten"
