Alan Humm

Whale-watching

Like thumbs, at first, testing the water.
Swimming so fluently
that they’re like pencil lines,
flexing and rolling. Puppyish,
although the water seems as black
and hard as anthracite.

The hills, kneading their knuckles,
and the eerie silver of the light
and the cold waves all seemingly indifferent,
and whales, resisting me: nothing but whale.

Horses

They work the horses in a metal drum;
it nudges them until their haunches,
leadenly provocative, all seem
to live a life apart. Such dull, retarded grace:

like bathing beauties, steered down flights
of stairs not by desire but by compulsion;
teetering on heels, a fleeting kind
of knowledge hiding in their face.

Ophelia

Drowning’s the only consummation
she has ever known.
Her hair and clothes
are garbled in the river,
limbs all riverine;
her mouth relentless
as the river’s mouth.
Listen to her;
to the way she sings:
garbles and dignifies
the river of herself.

Hemingway

His body is a verb,
beard blossoming like a taunt,
deliriously, on his face.

Such frail construction:
how a fish, as iridescent as a rainbow,
and a blunt cigar, a genuflecting bull,
are all supposed to mean the things you are;
how just one adjective,
like dye in water,
can alter everything.

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