Moby Dick
Last night I woke up around 2:30
and asked myself if I loved you.
Hmmm…. I don’t think so.
But that’s monstrous, I thought,
didn’t I act just the opposite
during the past few weeks,
and you pull me towards yourself
as if with a harpoon?
I cheered up and went
on the balcony to smoke
two cigarettes.
It was raining.
Did that wake me up?
I’ve heard that in weather such as this
fish bites
but nobody would rush
to chase wales in the ocean.
I started pondering:
why am I pleased
that I don’t love you?
And simply out of this answer
a poem came about–
yesterday I’d read
page 314:
“Oh, man! admire and model thyself
after the whale! Do thou, too,
remain warm among ice.
Do thou, too, live in this world
without being of it.”
I repeated parts of the found poem.
I also thought of the other
book in the pile on the ottoman –
“A Whale for the Killing” by Farley Mowat –
poorly disguised cleanliness.
Finally, freezing,
I returned to bed.
Would have been nice if I could
honestly finish like this –
finally,
(having put out the spermaceti candle)
I returned to bed,
to her hair, cascading like a fountain.
I carefully avoided it.