March 9, 2025Whalesong
of course, as a poet, I’m supposed to think
words matter, am supposed to note
the irony in the Pentagon algorithmically removing
references to diversity from its websites
and accidentally pulling photos
of the Enola Gay, famous
for dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
and not, to be clear,
fucking another B-29 in the ass
like a humpback whale,
like the first two humpback whales ever photographed
having sex only for it to turn out
they’re both male,
and the scientists, sometimes quoted
in a news article and sometimes not,
trying to emphasize that they don’t know why,
that the whales may be gay,
or it may be that one is injured,
or it may be that this is what whales do
in the 70% of Earth most of us know next to nothing about
because it is so watery and so deep,
the point being that we can’t ask the whales
what’s up with the buttfuckery,
which is distinct from the buttfuckery of the Pentagon,
which is metaphorical, and,
if I’m being honest, bordering on homophobic
as a term even in a poem admonishing them
for silencing the word “gay,”
realizing I am not being a very good whale ally,
whale here being a metaphor
for a trans state legislator in Montana
speaking so eloquently against an anti-drag bill
that the body politic flips,
a cis straight mother reaching across the aisle,
a couple dozen Republicans changing their votes to no,
a reminder that maybe they just needed to see
that there is so much ocean out there
and it is not just a place we cross
on the way to drop a bomb,
that we should be placing our heads in the water
more often, listening for strange-to-us song