by Kerfe Roig
Whales Beside the Ark
Right there, Sperm and Humpback, Killer mocking the arc-bound predators,
Beluga, Blue, Bowhead, Bottlenose, Beaked, an endless riot of blowholes
breaches, Gray, Fin, Pilot, Minke, each something akin to magic then gone
into tight corset of bone, oil to light the world, scent to entice humanity, gone
like countless dead flora and fauna drifting down onto ocean floor, then gone
in strangle nets, medicinals, pet food. At world’s end, a dolphin flies, seaside
beside the wooden hull, wonders, if I accompany this traveling show from Earth
to Paradise, will I be free to dance or be there just a moment, then gone?
Sheryl L. White is an artist and writer living in Boston. Her writing has been published in The Comstock Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, The Boston Globe, Split Rock Review, Great Lakes Review, Arnoldia, The Woven Tale Press Journal, The Roanoke Review, among others. She is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Poetry Finalist Grant and was twice selected for the Mayor of Boston Poetry Program. She has been a Pushcart nominee and a Best of the Net Nominee. Her chapbook, Sky gone, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.
A resident of New York City, Kerfe Roig enjoys transforming words and images into something new. Her poetry and art have been featured online by Silver Birch Press, The song is…, Pure Haiku, Visual Verse, and The Ekphrastic Review and published in Ella@100, Incandescent Mind, the Raw Art Review , The Anthropocene Hymnal: Songs of a self-defining era and several nature inspired anthologies. Follow her explorations on her blogs, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/ (which she does with her friend Nina), and https://kblog.blog/, and see more of her work on her website http://kerferoig.com/.