Whale Light The fluke is no fluke-- this happens all the time, these miracle windows we never look through except this once. Whale surfaced. Whale breathed. And now Whale returns to that other world, the long arc of sleek body ending with this-- not a tail but a window of water. Made by velocity and liquid pouring over skin, the trailing skim is stained glass without the stain, fragments of sky oranged by the gone sun-- it too having dove back down to that other world. The water window is not clear, has no mountains or waves on the other side-- it is just light with a frothy frame. Already the liquid glass is shattering back to sea. What do we see when we look through whale light? The world made bright by a creature who knows dark but that dark isn’t really all dark or the only-- there are other windows and other lights for all to see. Jim Minick Jim Minick is the author of five books, the most recent, Fire Is Your Water, a novel. The Blueberry Years, his memoir, won the Best Nonfiction Book of the Year from Southern Independent Booksellers Association. His honors include the Jean Ritchie Fellowship and the Fred Chappell Fellowship. His poem “I Dream a Bean” was picked by Claudia Emerson for permanent display at the Tysons Corner/Metrorail Station. His work has appeared in many publications including the New York Times, Poets & Writers, Tampa Review, Shenandoah, Orion, Oxford American, and The Sun.
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October 2024
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