Whaling

by James Lucas

 

Below the hull (we hope) are whales,

below the planks, the roll motion

sick who didn’t take their pills,

on deck, those who watch east to dusk

or squint west across blushered cheek

-bone swell into a late sun nailed

like a doubloon in easy reach.

We sail the cusp where light meets dark

within a Caravaggio

of shadow sea, of sea sun-lamped.

A cry goes up: flukes far ahead.

Our engine kicks and labours long

as the held breath in which a whale sounds

but nothing until aft, a spout;

the four points of the spotter’s clock

with bow at twelve, starboard at three

(child’s play within the harbour mouth)

wheel us through time zones and dates

as on our right two forms as one

slow blink of glass surface and wheel.

Whalechasers, satiated, cheer

for innocence—not the whales’, ours—

something we had thought lost or maimed

has crowned though the caul and clot

lights on an ocean wide enough

to clean birth’s bloody aftermath

and had I not six minutes’ dive

to think too hard about sincere

noise as atonement insufficient

to the sanctioned crimes in which

I know I play a role for which

I’ll never be arraigned, I’d feel

as the lighthouse dissolves

into a measured pulse and we

admit we’re spotting blind as we

re-enter the dark anchorage

past hidden Chowder Bay, I’d feel

for one night everything is changed.