Northern Resident Orca
Orcinus orca
by Rajiv Mohabir
Some are lonely before
they know. An orca
separated from his pod
calls out every night
as scientists listen
underwater to his song
ricochet and break
against Vancouver rocks.
What song do I scatter
in my sleep; do I tuck
as coral polyps into the dark
quiet to root and reef
in these shallows? Who
do I want to hear this
while I bottom in the Pacific?
Is it still song if no one
understands my lyrics,
translates my extinct language,
if my tongue is an isolate
what is a curse; what is reunion
if there was never a pod
but a fiction?
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Creator photo by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada
Poet, memoirist, and translator, Rajiv Mohabir is the author of four books of poetry including Whale Aria (Four Way Books 2023) and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His poetry and nonfiction have been finalists for the 2022 PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry and in Nonfiction, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature in 2022. He is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder. rajivmohabir.com @rajivmohabir on Twitter and Instagram.