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  • Empire, 1970
  • Liz Ahl (bio)
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Liz Ahl, postal service

Her Majesty’s postal servicewould like to remind youof her loving reach, and soa set of stamps for South Georgia—

on a rectangle of teal,the sperm whale divesafter a giant squid—

on olive, the calmly horizontalfin whale stretches beneatha boat—there presumably for scale—to remind us how big a thing might grow—

on burnt yellow,Shackleton’s cross, atopa bulky cairn, lords overdiscovered water and mountains—

on orange, two sooty albatrossand the crosshatched lines suggestingthe grasses they nest among—

on brown, the globularfur seal, fat and at attention,hoisted up on its flippers—

and on gray, a dozen penguins,chinstraps and kings,mill about like a crowdunsure whether the fire drill’s over—unsure what to do next—

And on each stamp, suspended in air,disembodied but no-nonsense, [End Page 55]

the head of Her Majesty,in profile, the neck bluntly cutwhere shoulders should be.

The instantly recognizable logoof Empire, the shape of her facetravels the globe, even now,on coins and bills and stamps.

She looks into the mountainsbehind Shackleton’s cross;she stares down the boatfloating over the fin whale;she gazes in the same directionas albatross and fur seal;she is balanced on the flukeof the sperm whale.

She will get those penguinsorganized. [End Page 56]

Liz Ahl

LIZ AHL is the author of three poetry chapbooks: A Thirst That’s Partly Mine, published by Slapering Hol in 2008; Luck, from Pecan Grove, 2010; and Talking About the Weather, from Seven Kitchens Press, 2012. Poems appear or are forthcoming in Rappahannock Review, Bloom, and Tidal Basin Review. She lives in Holderness, New Hampshire.*

First appearance in Ecotone.

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