Everyone rejoiced over the Humbolt Park gator being caught
but I wept alone
in my office
under the slightly angry glow of fluorescent lighting.

We don't know much about Chance's life,
but... we can assume a lot:
we can assume he lived in a basement
dark and dank
in a kiddie pool
with ***** water.
We can assume that he had a uv light,
but that he was a stranger to the sun,
to other animals,
to the feel of fresh water, and yet...

For six days he became Godzilla.
Imagine the triumph!
Crocodilians have been around since the Triassic,
but never in all those millions of years,
did one dream that it would go from a ***** basement
to being the apex predator
in an ecosystem where no one knew his name.

People complained that
he must have been confused,
scared
terrified for his tiny reptilian life,
but I never thought that.  
- I imagined him enjoying his triumph
as he paddled through the lagoon,
the sun on his back.