‘What Should I Know About Whales?’

He lit up down the phone,

as he sung about the one

so old, they found a 

harpoon head embedded 

in his skin, forged a century ago;

how when a humpback breaks the surface, 

its back goes on for miles, 

like it’s pulling up a world with it;

how, floating in unbroken blueness,

a thin film of light far above,

plummeting dark below,

the blue whale booms a song

that pushes through the sleeping deep

and touches another,

an ocean away:

‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.’