POETRY

Gray Whale

By Rajiv Mohabir     VOLUME 50.3&4

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Refugio Beach: close
to the bay’s break,
                      a spout

as we sift rock and egret
carcasses for ossified refuge,
the stone
     bone becomes.

I sewed a fetish to your shirt,
a figurine to carry
            that ensures return.

But for now our every breath:
a sudden burst. Your slack-

keyed baleen slat frays.
I am careless music too,

fingers curl around your fossil;
strum your spume, clumsy;

your palm prints: treble

clefs against shale cliffs,
our bones trading calcium
                      for agate’s coda.






RAJIV MOHABIR is the author of The Taxidermist’s Cut, winner of the 2014 Intro Prize in Poetry from Four Way Books. His second collection, The Cowherd’s Son, winner of the 2015 Kundiman Poetry Prize, is forthcoming.

VOLUME 50.3&4