ode to a blue whale

salt encrusted plates
sift through the oceanic
untidiness. we

watch and listen as
you gobble and scoff about,
underestimat-

ing the immeasur-
ablity discovered
upon opening

your worldly corpse. found
inside: one tire, plenty of
krill, dirty linen,

fourteen blow up rafts,
eleven fully intact
ancient greek sculptures,

a schooner (no masts),
twenty ships in bottles, six
rusty propellers,

and four schoolchildren.
we began understanding
lives of whales: swim slow,

die old and never
eat the sail, because sometimes
they might not digest.