Tilikum
        (the Orca who killed his trainer at Sea World)

Waist or forearm clenched in maw,
he, penned alone and used to stud, who'd
fathered fifteen calves and killed
other humans, could not know
he was drowning her, could not fathom
how he might couple with this one
so strangely shaped. And she? Meremayd,
in her death throes, all breathing ceased,
did something pass between them,
creature and creature?

What no one will say
is that he'd imprinted on here--
she, forty, married to her love
of Orcas, bonded with him,
she who wore a skin of white
and black to swim. Orcas
wander in pairs or pods. What no one
says is that he probably adored
her caresses, regarded her as mate,
whale wife, werewhale,
when he dragged her down.

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Copyright © 2016 Stuart Bartow All rights reserved
from Einstein's Lawn
Dos Madres Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission