We’re small now, small
as fish in our tiny school,
kayaking toward booming
spouts, flukes
and shadow-backs
breaking the glassy sea—
All around we see, hear,
whale, and drift, reckless
to encounter them rising,
ethereal tons
unstitching
the surface—the sea
a nether-world I dream into
but can’t know, where
a fin rises
like a black door
then disappears—
I’ve come here to be lost
in the blue center, rocking
on the brink of wet
darkness, the sea
swelling with beings, two
miles out, waves
picking up