|
Margo Taft Stever
Ascension
It takes seven strong men to drag the
six foot
heart of a blue whale across the deck
of a
whaling ship.
Faith McNulty
Beads of sweat well up on the sea-
stained faces of the seven men
who bear the still warm heart
of the blue whale to the boiling vats.
The men are deliverers; they tug,
rip, tear the heart
across the deck to the seething pots.
But their hands stick to surfaces
like flypaper, and recoil,
the red matter teething into fingers
as if leaching out the blood.
Ventricles, gaping mouths,
stand ajar; red smoke rises
in the darkening mist. Harsh wind
raps against crevices, something
trying to get back in,
tapping out an aberrant beat,
an unknown code, and something whines,
long and low, a sea moan.
Only a crane can lift
a six-foot heart, and as the last
inch of the raised organ
recedes into the stewing vats,
dismembered parts of the heart ascend
and billow over the deck.
Seven men inhale the vision, their
hearts
slackening with each breath.
First published in The Webster Review. Also,
published in the anthology, The Dolphin’s Arc: Poems on
Endangered Creatures from the Sea; the chapbook, Reading
the Night Sky, by Margo Taft Stever; and the book, Frozen
Spring, by Margo Taft Stever.
The Cello
Wood rooted to his hands, the strings
extend his fingers
to the tune, and the song overtakes
his flowering body.
The boy becomes the cello, the child
becomes flowers in the field,
the mourning dove, the morning
sunlight,
the boat becomes the sea.
Small fluting necessities, the
counter-
charms of life, random passion,
passing
grief, burnt offering, sheep
stuck again in brambles, brindled
blood-red, sacrificed.
A man who wanted to be stuffed
when he died and made into a chair,
who wanted pretty girls to sit on him,
run their fingers over his hair,
of all this the boy sings.
How everyone is looking for love,
bitter legends, weights
pressed against paper, god-like.
Whatever brings him back
into the too dark night, whatever
brings the man to sea,
as if the land were a mirage, as if
yearning for a mother's
gentle rocking, calls him.
So what are you calling for,
why are you calling? The boy
can barely hear your voice, so softly
bleating, just out of reach, far out,
even beyond this dream of stars.
First
published in
The Harvard Advocate 125th Anniversary Issue. Also,
published in the chapbook, Reading the Night Sky, by Margo
Taft Stever, and the book, Frozen Spring, by Margo Taft
Stever.
© Copyright, 2014,
Margo Taft Stever. |