The whale I lost in a book of water
I look for with a pair of binoculars.
I trawl for whale; I leave it verses. There
is a great weight at the end of my line. It is
a school. The mouths are difficult to make
out, but they are open. I think about this
for a good while. I end up on another
page in another volume. Search engines
comb the net with virtual tridents.
It occurs to me I ought to prepare
for immortality because now that
wishes are fishes I serve a life sentence.
I put up a fuss between time before
& time since. The line goes dark
though I have it in hand. What I cast is
eschatological. Even if the whaler
would tag my flukes so as to manage them,
is it the song he would follow ever after?
L.S. Klatt teaches English at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
