Poetry by Andrew Taylor-Troutman

“Poem After My Friend’s Phone Autocorrects ‘Humanity’ to ‘Halibut”’
             By Andrew Taylor-Troutman

…which is an animal I know only from a menu.
I Google it and learn this flat fish,
genus Hippoglossus, “horse tongue”
for its shape, can be 8 feet long,

5 feet wide, nicknamed Barn Doors.
There are lots and lots of recipes.
What interests me is “counter shading” —
brown on top to resemble the ocean floor,

and a white underbelly to mimic the sky.
Juveniles undergo metamorphosis,
left eye migrating to the right side,
so they swim always looking up.

Maybe that phone was onto something.
With complicated personalities,
humans try to blend in for protection.
Our vision can be limited to one direction.

But since the internet swims with puns,
autocorrect might’ve been just for the halibut.
What matters with data is what we make of it,
and of life, how we cherish it.

- Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Little Big Moments, a collection of mini-essays about parenting, and Tigers, Mice & Strawberries: Poems. Both titles are available most anywhere books are sold online. Taylor-Troutman lives in Chapel Hill where he serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church and occasionally stumbles upon the wondrous while in search of his next cup of coffee.

Copyright©2023 by Andrew Taylor-Troutman. All Rights Reserved.