The Whale

they threw money at you once, from the iced-up bow of the Mary Jane, some drunk tourist boat full of assholes with cameras, snapping away at your big, beautiful bulk sliding through the water like a blue dream on a good day when the bottle’s half-full.

photography clicks,
oohs and fucking aah,
love pouring out of them
like cheap wine.

now it’s thirty years later, and I’m standing on a shitty Norfolk beach in the rain, watching what’s left of you rotting in the sand, a busted grey carcass that doesn’t move no more.

the same gawkers come, only now the oohs and aahs are the sound of sadness, quiet and sick. crabs crawl in and out of your eyes, sucking whatever juice is left from those soft dead windows that once looked at the whole goddamn ocean like it was nothing.

the kings of the deep,
everything ends up beached,
even me and you.