Herring glow after death for a few days, when their green, pure surfaces turn blue, and their gills red, suffused with blood at the moment of death, searching for oxygen among a curse of gaseous molecules forever beyond their use. No one knows the reason for illumination. Alive, in their shoals, they're observed in the sun as a white, triangular shape in motion under the waves of the ocean. How many eggs are laid? How many are eaten at every stage of the life cycle? How few avoid the waste we leave, mutating the organs of those who survive. God loves each sparrow, but a fish? They have no hands to pray, no wings to soar, no throats to sing epiphanies. Life and death are their only gifts, and, if left alone on the killing ground, uneaten, a slender light reminding us who has dominion.