The Whale.(Brief Article)(Poem)

 
THE WHALE 
 
   For P. 
 
   Just like that your father's dead, 
   Half of all the footsteps you've made 
 
   In your lifetime swept away by the tide 
   Gnawing the shore, the bits of shells 
   Like fragments of bone and teeth sinking 
   Into the sand beneath you as you walk 
   Toward the people crowding the body 
 
   Of a young whale, a boy on the shoulders 
   Of his father, a woman slipping film into a camera, 
   The skin peeling on a lifeguard's neck 
 
   As he stoops peering into the animal's eye, 
   Saying nothing, the audience mute, or muted 
 
   By the sound of saltwater sweet-talking the shore 
   As if sweet-talking the earth from her prom dress, 
   The tide …