Come home, come home,
where your mother waits for you in the Salish Sea.
Stolen baby, kept in captivity;
half a century in a tank
more shallow than you are long,
the smallest cage for your kind.
You child performer,
you profitable commodity.
We whistle and yell,
Splash for us, beg for your food!
Come home, come home,
for death has finally freed you.
The red tape fell away when your life ended.
We cut you open, you blackfish,
dissecting our fellow mammal.
The necropsy says renal failure.
It is cheaper to transport a dead whale than a live one.
Your remains cremated and ashes returned
to the Lummi Nation, your kin on land.
Three decades of advocacy at an end.
Come home, come home,
where your family gathers on your day of death.
You belong in the deep
seas of ancestry,
where your lineage still sings
the lullabies from your infancy.
May your spirit follow the currents
and sink into fathoms of early memory,
when you rolled and played in the wild
where the Chinook leapt in the cold sea spray.
This poem first appeared in Lit Shark Magazine (2024).
—
Catherine Puma (she/they) is a queer writer with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences and English and a master’s degree in Tropical Marine Ecosystem Management. A member of the Poetry Society of Virginia and the Women’s Aquatic Network, their work has been published in ionosphere, Lit Shark Magazine, and The Blotter Magazine. Their website is www.catherinepumawrites.com.
