ebson salt  (rewrite)

Is it Epson Salt?
All those nice villas along the coast are empty save for stray cats
and those too poor to live inland because the sea stinks like
bouillabaisse gone off. Marine life and sea plants have died out of too much
acidity caused by industry, and now it is too late to clean up the mess.
Fish in tanks are guarded and so expensive only the very rich can afford it,
say, bacalao; we have to eat fishcakes consisting of ninety-eight percent
mashed potatoes, and the rest is cod skin. Cod liver oil is the cure-all medicine,
it’s too expensive, and only the well-off can afford to buy it,
and they, the rich, live years longer than the poor.
This has raised concern and social unrest, politicians on the left,
insist the poor have the right to be given a teaspoon
of the healthy oil every morning;
Mind there is synthetic cod liver oil, but it tastes awful.
Seagulls and terns have adopted well have earth-hued feathers,
sit in carob trees, sharp-eyed keep an eye for scraps of food and
scare tiny tots with their inane pirate shrieks.
From a safe distance, when the wind is calm, and on moonlit nights,
the sea looks as beautiful as written in fairy tale books, by
a marine biologist.