Did I tell you I found a
whale fetus wrapped in seaweed?
Did I tell you the sockets were empty?
It was on a Sunday.
The storm split a redwood in two and blocked the road to Planned Parenthood.
Can you hear the orca sing?
The cries of the dying.
She carried her dead calf for seventeen days before releasing it.
Did I tell you my son’s father poured water over my head
and left me in the forest?
Did I tell you he’s an addict?
My son has never asked.
Did you know I unraveled the unborn whale and stuffed it in my pocket?
Did you know the salmon are disappearing, the whales are hungry
and the mother pushed the calf a thousand miles with her head?
Kathryn de Lancellotti is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and a former recipient of the Cowell Press Poetry Prize and the George Hitchcock Memorial Poetry Prize. Her poems and other works have appeared in Chicago Quarterly Press Review, Catamaran Literary Reader, The American Journal of Poetry, The Bind, Porter Gulch Review, Rise Up Review, Cultural Weekly and others. Kathryn resides in Cayucos, California with her son, Jade.