He had been a man with many hobbies—
growing annuals in pots, stringing mandolins.
Walking with his sister on Sunday afternoons.
One morning he wakes to find himself a mammal in the sea.
Turning over helplessly, legs unknown,
trying every other minute to make a fist.
For ten vain seconds he stays up, spitting for sun,
or air, or ship. But the baleen whale need only breathe
once, twice a minute—so soon he comes to rest under.
He had never dreamt
of herring, of shallow, incubating seas,
of a mother like her, nudging him to the surface,
a prop for him on every tide.
And the ride to the arctic—its navy blanket,
a slow-beat waltz in his four-chambered heart.
His mother leading, but not ahead—
an infant song coming from his belly.
He had never found his voice before,
and now, a guttural landscape of throat
and inner ear. Holy. He remembers
the human hand, his former legs. He splits the water,
slaps his tail. It is not that he is lonely. It is even not that he rejoices.
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