Jonah, or My Whale

Sheryl Halpern

I used to think that

I could tell the whale

Where to go

That, joggled in damp

Krill-swarmed darkness

I was still prophet, brain

Heart of the problem

Now I know

The whale goes

where it wants to go

Up, down grey ocean wide

And takes me blind

My up is the whale’s up,

My dizzy down is the whale’s dive deep

My steady rocking its stilled sleep

Its long whistling songs

What I hear most

I cannot see, just feel

Despair on my fingers

I could be near shore

Or on far sea mountains

Who knows but whale

Who needs no prophet

Who heeds no call

From me, within

Its mucky ribbed walls

Of fleshy, warty well

Black black black

bleak always

Somewhere outside,

The bible goes on

And I’m not even cited,

buried alive in sea paragraphs

I cannot speak here

Or be heard out

over low moaning

I am whale, no

I am in whale and

Whale is all