A blue whale’s heart is nearly
as tall as I am, blood pumping
cavernous slow and stretching
time to easy ribbons, buoyed
and crushed in equal measure,
salt dotting gravity like stars
in the infinite dark.
And I, a cultured ape, palm-sized
organs pulsing quick, lick chip
grease from my fingertips, sinking
into the sofa to marvel at marine
life captured in ludicrous detail
on tv, incapable of grasping
the enormity.
Specks in space, suspended
in time, consuming our weight
of the world.
Swimming like dust in a shaft
of light not quite caught by
the shade.
