The Body as Source of Light

A thousand meters deep
     in the zone called mesopelagic, 
a lanternfish lifts its tiny row
     of photophores, offering to slip it 
into the ocean's voluminous sleeves. 
     Nightly it rises toward the surface
to feed on plankton. By itself,
     its gleam is a sliver. But millions
of them shimmer the water with
     tinfoil. Their light is endogenous—
meaning they produce it with their own
     bodies. What an astonishment: to find 
inside of us two sticks or flint and steel, 
     what it might take to start a flame.