a poem by jared beloff

What Was Found Inside the Whale

The children who saw the slick, dark figure approached slowly,
pretending it was a sunken enemy ship, an iron grey hull revealed
by drought and a whimpering tide. Then its dry, barnacled skin
and one resigned eye the size of Mrs. Rosario’s serving plate
swatted their dreams like mist in the air, and only then did they see
the dead whale’s mouth open and garlanded by flowers threading baleen
like the white carnation over their sister’s ear at the homecoming dance.

The adults warned them to move back, afraid of bacteria in a rotting mass,
stories of explosions on the beach, but soon the older men could hear waves
inside the whale’s stomach, the cadences of their mother singing,
the same songs they would retreat to on nights when they allowed themselves
to worry about the future, songs and the perfume of roses made them think
of shucking corn on front porches, syllables patterned along each ridge and kernel,
a melody as thin as braided silk. They wept into the sand, a hand to the whale’s side.

That night, no one returned home. We were unable to turn our backs on her,
decided she must be our mother to hold so many memories. She began to glow,
coral bright beyond her fringed teeth. Those who swam in the sea were reminded
of calm sunlight easing itself into the water to reach them. We felt our held breath,
which was also hers, the knock of our ribs, and the compression of her diving heart,
now ascendent and unfiltered, inscrutable as starshine and vapor.

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