Because they have no dorsal fins,
they look like stepping stones
or ancient stairs
floating down through water to the plain of sand
where bones of other whales lie buried—
not like the unlucky whales lost in krill-pink clouds
where lines from buoys to lobster traps
become bars on a cage.
I saw a photo of one, a rope had caught its baleen comb
jigsawed through to the jaw, torn the creature’s fluke.
I read it takes weeks
for the whale to die deep below the surface—
that the nearby fishermen hosing down their boats,
could have no idea.
This poem first appeared in PLUME Anthology 7 (2019).
—
Sally Bliumis-Dunn is Associate Editor-at-Large and features writer for PLUME, and teaches the Personal Essay at the 92nd Street Y in NYC. Her poems have appeared in 32 Poems, New Ohio Review, On the Seawall, The Paris Review, PLUME, Poetry London, Prairie Schooner, the NYT, PBS NewsHour, upstreet, The Writer’s Almanac, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day, and Ted Kooser’s column, among others. In 2002, she was a finalist for the Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize. Her third full-length collection, Echolocation, was published by Plume Editions/Madhat Press in March 2018 and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award as well as the Julie Suk Award.
