The Whale

I am abandoned:
no one reads
my poems anymore.

In a frantic bid
to have them read again

I have sworn on the grave of
all my past poems
that every poem I write
from this moment on
will conform and be about
injustice,
fucking,
or both — except for this one

about last Friday when
far off
the New Hampshire coast,

cold under bright sky
and on top
of joint rattling seas,
I saw a humpback whale

as I had never seen one before:
by itself, apparently
not a part of any group.

It paralleled our small boat
for a few minutes
then raised its flukes one last time
and surged down
into diamond tipped
dark waves.

No way to say if that whale
was hungry, horny, lonely, lost, ostracized,
or none of the above.
Surely it seemed at peace,
but there’s no way
to be sure of anything about it
other than its sine-wave course
beside us.

I’m changed now:
I swear to spend more time
humbly observing and pondering
the quests of solo whales,

and thus the world shall be improved:

perhaps less injustice;
perhaps more fucking;
surely, fewer poems.