A dead humpback, its flanks
shredded by shark or prop,
rolled sleepily in the lungcrush
of breakers slamming salt
barrels onto a beach by Half
Moon Bay. Even from the cliff
I was stung by the yellow
stink conscripting the breeze
for the early hours of rot.
Descending the dunes I joined
those crowded around the whale,
amid the darts and hooks
of blowflies, to watch the decay
at work in the waves. Torn fins
swung down like dock ramps
from the hill of its body. Flukes
slapped in the pounding foam,
as if a last report against death
quickly betrayed by the bladder
ballooning out of its belly
like gum blown too thin to hold.
Eyes once covenant with the sea
stayed shuttered to the gulls
gathering in the foggy light.
The mouth was sealed off
from breath and song. Any words
we spoke died in the waves
as we stared into the purge
of fluids, the collapse into maggots,
the crumble of gravewax and fat
The Whale
If a Leviathan can be hooked and hauled to land, what hope has a fish in a puddle?The Talmud
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