The whale in this city
building keeps these bodies
crawfished—heads forward,
pinched, eyes glazed over
by the size of the thing.
In this city I am wanting
to be the ghost:
ignore this place
like it doesn’t mean a thing.
In this building though
we would live to be in the orbit
of the lifeless creature,
forever see the ridges on its body
like the last grains of rice,
our smaller selves waving
wildly in its presence.
I once mistook its living counterparts
for ships. Now I cannot shake the way
every whale reminds me of you,
their bones: elastic and brittle.
--marlo barrera
july 2010
the first draft of this poem was written my senior year of high school.
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