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      June 22, 2021Humpback Swallows Lobster Diver in ProvincetownJennifer Jean

      it’s a great white no whale yeah it’s dark it’s
      up to him I’m in or out like those injured jungle nights
       
      after the Sansa smash
      in Costa Rica or being dragged to sea from Race Point spinies
       
      tread tread treading
      and every 10 seconds is a damn day dog gone
       
      I’m gonna miss Bibi bad break my legs or die I see the sand
      in her hair from Sunday miss our damn
       
      kids I don’t decide the dockmaster
      wouldn’t let up about Mike! un-fuckin-tangle
       
      your aluminum nets from my shit! and I decided not to shit
      Josiah’s gonna get the blame the sweat stain
       
      on the front of that same damn red T he won’t
      give it up he’s the shit 10 seconds and the almighty
       
      every last body told me to go
      to Joe’s over on the dune side of town and draw a line say
       
      Stop grifting our gear! The Ja’n J is mine and get your own boat
      if you want to lobster! but I had to go on this damn
       
      dark dive with no bottom to the 10 second
      day I don’t decide something’s muscling me
       
      all over then my life’s like one of Ma’s best painted “Packard skies”
      and spit into it and out of this
       
      young buck baleen deciding I can do whatever the hell
      I want I want to buy Joe a Bud and not
       
      because it tastes like destiny but I’m happy
      to say it will

      from Poets Respond

      Jennifer Jean

      “I love that this story proves the veracity of a particular biblical miracle. And that Mike the lobster diver is a stand-in for every one of us coming out of the pandemic lockdown—from our own version of Joseph Campbell’s ‘belly of the whale’ portion of the Hero’s Journey: we were in that dark forever—it seemed—and now we’re out and life is new and full of possibility, opportunity, do-overs. We can be bruised but healing and smiling. We can love everyone if we want. I don’t know if that’s what Mike’s done, of course, but that’s what biblical Jonah does. That’s what I’m trying to do.”