Greg Miller

We pass the straits of the Cape where grazing whales gather, though they’re not, I’m told, social creatures by nature. Alice asks how they can sleep if they must think to breathe. Cranial hemispheres wink and wake and alternate, so whales are half-awake and half-asleep, balanced between each of our states through dive and breach. Once on the kitchen wall of a dune shack I saw, like a headdress, the baleen of a whale— frayed filaments run from a thin, curled, rib-like bone: sieves for the sea. Like this sickle-moon fin “negatively buoyant” I sink in sleep, but end, I think, where I begin. Following one as it leaves two other whales we see suddenly not what we’re heading for but the asymmetrically colored snout of a fin whale as it rises parallel within a stone’s throw of the boat, the great eye set back water crashing rushing to let me see where it ought to be. I lose track, the mottled chin’s marble veined, swirling through its green veil, which the top jaw slits. And then, that’s it, I think. Nights I’m thrown upright from my rest. Brine thumps my chest.

A loon dives in the swollen river. It followed the river first. The town lies between it and canals Diverted from the river. The beak of the loon is orange, Its wingspan broader than a duck’s. My father’s legs were swollen. His once thin ankles barely fit his shoes. His heart no longer fed his body. Toxins and liquids began to drown him. His silly doctors didn’t see He couldn’t breathe. My father took me to the river. We fished for bass and bluegill, Sunfish, cats. Fat suckers, Their lips like suction cups, We put back. Too many little bones To catch and make you choke. I no longer want to go fishing. I don’t even want to play In the water. The boat Here has no oars, the current Is too swift. In the dark, teenagers Discover their body together. The body feels like a prison. I kneel by my father’s stapled body. He suctions thick liquid from his lungs. He coughs to clear them; it hurts. He wants more air. He wants To live, the heart’s valve's parachutes Opening with oxygen to feed The body’s healing. A tube Empties the chest cavity. He excretes Liquids and poisons. His shocked kidneys come to life. His stunned heart beats. His lung Opens again. He eats. He poops. He walks. He wants to go home. On the phone, I catch my sister Taking him home. It’s snowing. It’s cold. My brother and mother Help him climb the stairs. I walk down the path By the shallow canal. I see A falcon fishing. The power plant Breathes steam. I hope The wind won’t singe me. I come to the falls Where a little dog Barks and bounces hello. His owner Smiles and greets me. In the church Of Saint Laurence I kneel, I Give thanks, my heart jumps.