Encounter with a Whale

Encounter with a Whale

Approaching like a tearaway hill
come muscles, guts and bone.

Sea-spray flicks a lonely bible,
and the dog, under a table, moans.

Squid have ruined the photographs
swilling in the water’s darkroom,

and blocks of ice detach in gasps
like fainting women. Don’t assume

this is a monster roiling past,
captain; don’t assume your death

or cover the dog’s mouth. Here
is a fallen god, that in a breath-

in and a breath-out now disappears
like rain at the centre of the ocean,

returning in an apology,
that after entering our brains

slips back inside mythology.