“In the village, people began rushing about while some of the boats veered across the bay to cut off the whales’ escape. This was the hunt.”
“Esteban and Desmond fished for perch / through ice holes at Devil’s Lake. Esteban // brought up a shaved head with a mustache.”
“Emptiness on water is called a boat.”
“Still the hair she holds off her neck / sends heat into him.”
“She was so sad that she held the hand of the stranger sitting next to her.”
“Porcelain chinked as heat / blew the curtains, and mud /
sucked the water from snow.”
“A few shutters in the brain must
close before a dirty film can work its magic, and the effort required
to overlook the mullets and simian dialogue disqualifies porn as
a transporting sex-enhancer.”
“pressing our hands into the earth and our
bodies into an
angle of consent // we were particular and penetrating and impossible”
“When I come to my senses, the sad // box where I would have kept them /
like singing mermaids gives way /
to the aimless mind of the wind // teasing the junipers. . . .”
The Whale Hunter
