Andie Klarin | poetry | Goslings & Whale Culture

Goslings

Next time, we will remember to get an early start 
and when the day fades, 
we will remember 
what we looked like 
early morning 
long necked women 
with our hair piled to fluff 
and our babies not yet vicious and their baby teeth 
falling out slow and deliberate like suicide divers 
or the sewer rats 
we mistake for magical 
sea creatures in the canal 
when we are trying to see 
the best in things 
and I am trying my best 
not to fall out of love with you. 

When we kiss, I can taste 
ocean pollution like salt 
and spoiled fruit 
and I get angry 
that what you give me 
isn’t so clearly good anymore.

We are the closest 
to the way things were 
when I tell you 
that love is complicated 
when I explain that I am not scared of geese, I am scared 
their anger will make me hurt them and you see my shoe 
in the sternum 
of their floating riverboat bodies without me having to say it.
We know this is not love, 
and when we pass 
or can't bear to pass 
the things that were once 
not vicious yet 
we know we have wasted 
another day pretending 
things are 
what they once were 
and neither of us can bear to say it.

Whale Culture

Matriarchal 
the males of the species 
suck in the small indecencies 
of the ocean 

they go to school 
and study krill 
and the killing of fish insects

their wives are the ones who moan
come home from a day 
of belly work and beaching 
and exhale water 
into the mouths 
of their submissive lovers
 
they make love on their backs 
they are as gentle 
as they were taught to be 
by their mothers 
who did not teach them 
to be gentle enough 
and the males of the species know
that cumming hurts 

female whales fuck 
to reproduce 
and for pleasure 
and to replicate a whale society 
which has brought them so much pleasure
they are inclined to reproduce 

male whales fuck 
and sometimes suffocate 
on the only liquid 
they have been told 
they should be able to breathe