Corpse Whale

In Wainwright’s Musk Oil Spermary

82 In Wainwright’s Musk Oil Spermary for OW A charwoman enveloped in dark heavy colored smoke returns her/me Wainwright to breed. When she/I send/s me back she/I afflict/s parching heated rocks as an offering to the spirits. Soaked in tallow a redthroated wren and a lemming with four hoofed toes hang on her shoulder eating at her/me water fleas and louse. With a single breath blowing she/I glean/s charcoal rot and the fire burns higher. A wretched doll dances on a string its shadows mark the walls of the tupik. She/I touch/es the blue trade marbles on the ground. They seem hard cold smooth. She/I throw/s them like marbles they roll. Crouching she/I see/s three human heads carved from walrus teeth fastened on the charwoman’s marmot belt. She/I sit/s down to the flood scoured ground she/I see/s a butchered black brant suspended on red willow sticks turns slowly over the fire-pit. She/I envisage/s a feast like the one in Nunamiut Kaktovikor the one of bloodroot and river otter. It was if her/my impulse/s impulse/s impulse/s of the throat to swallow chokes. The burnt gut salivates in the back of mouth. Her/my reaction/s to the burns created more saliva.saliva. saliva. As she/I crest/s Wainwright on the last hill where she/I flee/s the spawn lair 83 the charwoman forbids her/me to go. With her hands she gives me an empty glass bottle to collect feathers from the golden plover. And there she/I stand/s rummaging through lice and frothy blood. I realize now she’s/I’m the donor the giver of life the mother the twin sister the earth and the Raven. ...