Sometimes I feel the world is too crowded
as though we can’t possibly need
two million people who play the flute
but then I hear about a woman named Madison
who studied hepatobiliary polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons in pelagic fishes
of the Gulf of Mexico
and I fall in love with Madison
even though I only understand
the fishes part
because she toiled away
at a university in Florida all last year
as a pandemic raged around her
determined to fight the odds of indistinction
in our big and crowded world
by knowing more than anyone
about one topic
so exquisitely
thin.