The fable of the blue whale’s army

is one of seasonal returns

to spent summers of light and play,

of match-box forts and backyard seas

whose waves reach the kitchen,

and sinking the shadows

of the sonorous utensils,

of my mother at work,

quietly, unlike themselves, slip

into my room,

into its dark corners

and abate,

forming an infant island

out of the bed I lie on, having

escaped my name

into a distant, echoless sleep.

Awake, amidst the disquiet

of the tropics, the wind

among the teak leaves,

ripe beans of coffee

palm fronds, green fans,

I narrate the fable

to cousins,

all impassioned fabulists,

unsuspecting yet fearful.

Sea horses, octopuses,

whales miles long,

now forgetful and venerable,

bathed in the sun

in these teakwood jungles

that was a long,

long while ago

a frightening ocean.

But fear not,

on the seas,

they sink ships, devour sailors

and burp loud earthquakes,

on sundays, there they come

octopuses with flags,

eight of them,

seahorses and spears,

whales with cannons,

to the market

when all the fish in the sea

are caught in the fishermen’s nets.

2006

Advertisement