by Kim Cornwall

A beluga rising
from the ocean’s muddy depths
reshapes its head to make a sound
or take a breath.

I want to come

at air and light like this,
to make my heart
a white arc above the muck of certain days,
and from silence and strange air

send a song

to breach the surface
where what we most need
lives.

What Whales and Infants Know, Beluga Point, 2012