Grey Whale: A Sonnet - Julia B Levine

Down at the wharf, the young scientists
                                    cable the skeleton of a grey whale
to a truss, all two hundred and thirty-six bones
articulated, five jointed fingers
under each pectoral fin, giant beak
beneath a baleen. How fragile the text
of flesh. How slow, unhurried, these last days
of a year falling away, and now,
 
a sudden storm up from sea. I am in the kitchen,
starting coffee, when you call me outside.
Beside our pond, the beyond seems a slurred curtain
fallen, lifted again. And haven’t we
been given nearly everything? Your arms
around me, rain touching the dark water open.