How the Whale Forgets the Love of Felicia

HOW THE WHALE FORGETS THE LOVE OF FELICIA / Pattiann Rogers If he breaches at all, he only rises To a moderate height, rolls little And falls without luster or surf, silently In an unremarkable mid-autumn fog. He rejects the underlying form Of the fairy shrimp, will not ingest Fleeing krill if their silver bodies sparkle, Ignores the possibilities in the strong, White wings of the manta ray. In order to avoid the awareness Of her absence, he must not close his eyes. In order to avoid the sound of her name, He must not remind himself to forget. He deliberately pulls away and by-passes Brilliant bars of green sun shimmering Through the dark sea, and he pulls away and sinks Deliberately from the light salt-vacancies Of stars ascending like tiny jewels of air Through the ocean night. And he never pictures the beauty of barefoot Riders on horseback when white gulls perch And flutter on his crusty hump. And he never remembers tireless dancers In transparent silks when white waves leap, Reaching and bowing before a violet sky. As he moves forward, he doesn't heed or acknowledge The only direction manifested naturally and forever Inside the tough hide of his heart, and he doesn't name The honor of his own broad brow or the honor Of the comb jellies he passes or the bravery of the bream And the halfbeaks or the cruelty of the moon's soft skin Sliding along his own in the night. 18 · The Missouri Review How careful he must be never to profess with fervor The devotion of denial, the clear affirmation Of suffering. Indifferent to his own methods, he merely dives Repeatedly to a depth of dull twilight Where he meditates without passion on the great Indeterminable presence of the steady sea, the rock And return, the capture and simultaneous release Of its thousand, thousand meaningless caresses. Pattiann Rogers The Missouri Review · 19 ...