Still Life w/Influences

I stood at the modern knothole,

my eyes on the pivoting modern stars and naphthalene green

turfs and surfaces.

Behind me the stone fleur-de-lis

sank back over the horizon,

carving a fleur-de-lis-shaped track in air

that spread into a bigger hole.

                                  Up on the hill,

a white tent had just got unsteadily to its feet

like a foal or a just-foaled cathedral.

Down on the beach, ten black whales were crashing

slowly, through themselves,

draped in wet bedsheets.

The bedsheets smoked into the air.

I opened my palm. A green edifice opened there.

It seemed to breathe but that was air breathing for it,

lifting a corner or a column.

Goodbye, my thirteenth-century.

                                  I folded the money away.

What do ye do when ye see a whale?

                                  I sing out.

— Joyelle McSweeney

Originally published in the February/March 2002 issue of Boston Review