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WHALE DREAMING DEEP

by Lee Kirk

Remember the evening we spread

the old brown sleeping bag

on the beach near Lynn's house?

We built a fire, ate roast chicken

in our hands; licked greasy fingers

and burned the crackling bones.

Earlier explorers had set on end

worn and weathered driftwood,

a knobby-fingered hand

raised against the wind. Behind

this barricade we sipped champagne,

seeing sundown through flimsy plastic cups.

You left to walk the tideline;

drowsy, I curled around a shadow,

watching light fail

behind the twisted pickets of the boards.

Briefly they were ship's ribs, a vessel

incomplete, or vestiges of wreck.

I became a tiny Jonah, seeing beyond

the red-reflecting flames

the bones of my leviathan.

The beat of sea beneath my ear

was pounding heart; and then -- becoming whale --

I sounded into sleep.

I woke to find you pacing,

some wild and circling beast.

"How can you sleep when it's so cold?"

you asked. Rising from that murky deep,

"It's easy," I replied. "You simply

close your eyes, and dream you are a whale."

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