Oceanic - Aimee Nezhukumatathil

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vanish at the edge

      of the constellations—

      the heroes and animals

      too busy and bright to notice.

      Mr. Cass and the Crustaceans

      Whales the color of milk have washed ashore

      in Germany, their stomachs clogged full

      of plastic and car parts. Imagine the splendor

      of a creature as big as half a football field—

      the magnificence of the largest brain

      of any animal—modern or extinct. I have

      been trying to locate my fourth grade

      science teacher for years. Mr. Cass, who

      gave us each a crawfish he found just past

      the suburbs of Phoenix, before strip malls

      licked every good desert with a cold blast

      of Freon and glass. Mr. Cass who played

      soccer with us at recess, who let me check

      on my wily, snappy crawfish in the plastic

      blue pool before class started so I could place

      my face to the surface of the water and see

      if it still skittered alive. I hate to admit

      how much this meant to me, the only brown girl

      in the classroom. How I wish I could tell Mr. Cass

      how I’ve never stopped checking the waters—

      the ponds, the lakes, the sea. And I worry

      that I’ve yet to see a sperm whale, except when

      they beach themselves in coves. How many songs

      must we hear from the sun-bleached bones

      of a seabird or whale? If there were anyone on earth

      who would know this, Mr. Cass, it’s you—how even

      bottle caps found inside a baby albatross corpse

      can make a tiny ribcage whistle when the ocean wind

      blows through it just right—I know wherever you are,

      you’d weep if you heard this sad music. I think

      how you first taught us kids how to listen to water,

      and I’m grateful for each story in its song.

      Penguin Valentine

      Praise the patience of a papa penguin.

      I don’t envy those dark, starlit nights

      with only the occasional blush-green

      current of auroras across his claws.

      See how sweetly he holds the egg close

      in his brood pouch? And I am certain

      his fierce tenderness would scare

      even a crabeater seal five times his size.

      What exactly does the papa penguin register

      in a nighttime that lasts two whole months?

      During those days of no sun, does he

      remember the particular bend

      of his mate’s neck, that hint of yellow

      near her ears? Or does he hunger for a slip

      of hooked squid, worry the grand gulp of air

      he must take, the concentration needed

      to slow down his own heart? Praise

      the faithfulness, the resolve, the lanceolate

      feathers shaped like tiny spears, perfect

      to poke through a cartoon heart and signal:

      Valentine. And Valentine, I sing your praises

      not because I know you’ll wait for me

      like that (though I know you would

      if you could), but because you never waver.

      I don’t know how you know what direction

      to look and how to listen for my return, even

      when my call boils from the floor of the darkest

      of arctic seas, even if, for now, all we can feel

      is a cast of red crabs stretching before our path.

      from The Rambutan Notebooks

      Remember the archipelago even in shadow-time.

      Remember in spite of all the storms, it’s still there,

      full of sapodilla and salt. Remember the taste

      will be just under your tongue when you rise up

      and fight. Barbed wire and a gumbo-limbo tree

      call you home, call you teeth and visitor. Each visit

      here means a memory spill of your mother.

      If a girl is retrieved from clouds, then what

      is her throat now, what is her wrist and ear?

      Where will she call home now?

      I have been studying the word home

      as if studying for a quiz, trying to guess

      answers to questions before they are asked.

      Soon a slight foam appears under a frog,

      a promise of leg kick, a pulse toward

      shelter even if all she sees now is mud.

      I won’t ask the rambutan about its messy hair.

      I know you are tired of trying to flatten

      your hair into something it is not. When

      it is meant to flap and fly in the wind-salted air.

      Unplug the iron. Let questions of what is beauty

      and what is not-beauty fruit down your back.

      Sometimes it is possible to still embrace

      the wildness of home, even if the lone window

      in your room only blooms snow and more snow.

      Two Moths

      In Praise of My Manicure

      Because I was taught all my life to blend in, I want

      my fingernails to blend out: like preschoolers

      who stomp their rain boots in a parking lot, like coins

      who wink at you from the scatter-bottom of a fountain,

      like red starfish who wiggle a finger dance at you,

      like green-faced Kathakali dancers who shape

      their hands into a bit of hello with an anjali—I tell you

      from now on, I and my children and their children

      will

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