The Whale

If I could
I’d swim the length of you.
I’d train my eye on every groove,
each hue that marks your back.

Every speck of bluey grey,
the mottled skin that gave you your name
the name that put a price on your flesh.

Swim low, beautiful blue
this world has not been kind to you.

I’d reach your head,
I’d find your eyes
I’d wonder what they’ve seen.

if only I could swim along your optic nerve,
I’d glimpse the world beneath the waves,
undisturbed by men and their capitalist ways.

But you know all about them.
You know the hunter by whom you were named,
You know the market that took your numbers away,

So swim low, beautiful blue,
I wish the world had never found you.

But down here, time slows and reverses,
the pull of tides brings back the worst
and the glint of a harpoon breaks the still

I dive in front,
it will not touch you,
but the metal cuts through me with such a force
it finds you anyway

Of all the things I want to say,
this is not one of them,
if I could find another way,
I would, but it’s just not possible.

Swim low, beautiful blue,
this world will not be kind to you,
we do not deserve your beauty—
too many want you dead.

Swim low, beautiful red,
at least deny them the prize of your flesh,
let sharks and fish find you instead
deny them of their sport.

Stay low, beautiful corpse,
who the fuck was the law even for?
for your kind? there are already too few!
the committees came too late for you.

So swim low, beautiful blue,
we don’t deserve to know about you.