Must a Violence

I Was a Whale

114 I Was a Whale I was a whale extending a flipper I rolled over and over to feel the water coursing over my powerful body I am so immense unstoppable and yet the water surrounds me and holds me up I am not made of machinery I am pure light coursing through a tube Oh voice of my father Oh voice of my teacher They call to me underwater I turn my belly to the sun I was a complicated instrument I had silver valves and alternating pistons curving brass slides that could be removed and put back again I carved my own mouthpiece from a waving reed cut down at the water’s edge The length of a breath was the length of a bow drawn across me The strings hummed The sun gleamed off my metals Oh velvet revolt of sound into the cold, cracked air Oh changing tones reflecting the roundness of the mouth the density of thought I was an inchworm hanging from a silken thread Invisible I was a living 115 green digit counting in units of one each guilty body as it passed oblivious I chastised the striding arm I measured the error over the skin’s expanse I matched the dirty exhale with a fluctuating air My purity canceled out the trespass and left a vacuum where I fell and gained a footing on the mottled earth Oh generosity withheld Oh unspoken apology I was an audience a congregation I was a lobotomy ward I was single-minded in my endeavor the wasp hovering just above I was a sled of regrets dragged over gravel I was furiously weaving at the structural lines Oh threadbare life-forms Oh lungs that pump the sour air I was a fog machine beneath a heavy broad rock I was an invisible wheel in my own heart turning, turning as the rest of me rode my bicycle down the street I was the toothed mechanism ground flat I was the somewhat deflated lining 116 A glass shard hurt from an undetectable location I was tainted with a compromised oil I sought traction as the beatings surrounded me in the pitch I can’t tell if it’s me or the machinery to which I am affixed Tiredness radiates from the exact center Oh fuse Heart of the invisible wheel of the heart ...