#14

Whale Watch

On boats
it was always this:
my sister reclined in the stern
turns to a nap.
and I
dashing to the bow
as fast as I can
wind all the way through me if I can.
Until I am exhausted, sunburned and seasick, usually.
Throwing up off the stern
my sister, now awake, handing me a paper towel.
The root has a way of staying the same.

Our shells change
we flick them away into the wake of time.
Facing the moon each-by-each,
but after twenty years,
I twist my face to see the boy I once knew.
Oh, but he is there.
The root has a way of staying the same.

At the dinner table it was this:
you've turned all eyes to me with curious questions and excited reflections. And still I dread this. I falter and close at the sight of all this attention. The barking spider frozen beneath the blinding beam of a flashlight. Caught. No web in sight. No luminosity. Just the prisoner entranced by the light. The root has a way of staying the same. 

We've gone now
these many moons
and tides
more.
No one knows how long, really, the whales can live.
Beneath.
Those oceanic, blue-light
hearts
beating
in time
to
something
S l o w
Who knows how long they can go.
The root has a way of staying the same.


-Llora H. Kressmann