TOKITAE

8/1/2025

Tokitae lived in the cement of Miami 

in the slipstream of Milton’s debris. 

Salish for “Pretty colors, Nice day,” 

she died of pneumonia and tar.

She was no killer, 

but Johanna was a Nice Day.

Born in the Southwest most region of Ukraine,

if it hadn’t belonged to Hungary, 

then Czechoslovakia, 

then war, 

Trancarpathia would have belonged to her.

She delivered every word so gently that it landed like snow;

It would kiss your skin and melt. 

One night, 

in late November, 

she used all the milk and eggs and flour, 

and made 318 pancakes by morning. 

Johanna never said she was scared, 

but she told us. 

By satellite, you could see Tokitae within the Miami Seaquarium, the Killer Whale of Virginia Key. Long retired from showork, the 7,000 pound Southern Transient Orca was abandoned in the Medical Pool. The 80-feet-across and 20-feet-deep accommodation was a puddle of a prison. One in which the Nice Day would spend 30 years stagnant. 

Of course there were protests. The National Ocean Alliance, the Marine Conservatory, 5th graders from New Miami Middle school. Objection grew online, stumbled into street banners and settled in the Seaquariums review pages. But people grow tired and indisposed, and a lack of action leads to empty resolve. Tokitae was forgotten, and died. 

And what of my Nice Day?

What will be left of Johanna when Trancarpathia falls? 

Long abandoned by the headlines, 

do people still care for a 2-year-old war?

When the protests fly a different flag each quarter, 

and the medical pool is drained, 

who will they call a killer?