From the midst of the nether
world I cried for help.
—from the Book of Jonah
A gray whale blows off Cardiff Beach,
just beyond the glamour homes,
boutiques, and drive-thru windows,
valet service and all-u-can-eat sushi.
I want to swim out and be swallowed.
Jonah’s whale wasn’t Ahab’s, all
tripey white and peg-toothed, but
a strainer of phosphorescent shrimp,
which lamped the reeking gut, like
fireflies we swallowed once, in jars.
Even so, I say Moby gobbled Ahab,
steeped him in a pungent broth and
after 3 days spewed him bawling wet
onto the very beach where his
wife and boy kept a driftwood fire.
I hide in my own belly, treading a
sickly cocktail, on which float half-
eaten books, grocery lists, plastic bags,
dashboard figurines, and bugs like
butts in dregs of budget vodka.
No fireflies constellate these palms.
I fantasize a swarm, swallow it all,
that a spark might fall into my water.
I’d throw myself to the whale, to be
not digested, but gestated, then dis-
gorged, bleached and sucking light,
right here. I’ll scavenge bottles to hold
luminous soup I wring from my soul
and throw them to the waves for all
the other, countless, castaways.
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