Lila Waterfield

Whale Fall

Your hands clammy and slick,
grasping hard enough to bruise.
My lips blue and gasping.
We chased one another,
weeds tangling our legs
and pulling us down.
I don’t know why I can’t forget
the way my chest breached
green water that summer,
or the first stinging bite
of a horsefly. I am still thinking
about whales and deep water,
how sometimes, it’s what you expect
that swallows you whole.
Let me show you how people fall
like whales: watch me settle,
fish flickering until the water rusts.
Teeth bright stars as they unravel me
and fight for the weight of my heart,
the acrid bite beneath my skull.
In what remains bottom dwellers settle;
they touch and clasp bone
to feel the way water eventually
smooths all edges.
I dream my body a haven
to raise their young.

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Lila Waterfield is a freelance editor, journalist, poet and full-time procrastinator. She received a BA in English from the University of Toledo. Her poems have found a home in Anti-Heroin Chic and her byline has appeared in the Toledo City Paper and its subsidiaries.