Five Poems

Tonight, when you wake, I bring in my copy of Moby-Dick. At first, you do not seem impressed with the honor and glory of whaling: no debate about the what and where of a whale’s skin or the scientific feat of the beheading can redeem the powerless panic of the lost colossal. I hold you over my shoulder and you twist your face and hands, like the cannibal Queequeg. ‘Corkscrew!’ I shout, which brings you to shout, for we desire the same thing. Language will not come between us. I slip you sidewise and you drink from the goblet socket of your harpoon.