shark poem | memories of my ghost sista

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conversations with imaginary sisters, femme de requin, poem, Poetry, requin, sea poem, shark poem, sharkcallers, sonnet

Far-off wave, depraved. Nali leans over

the edge of the dugout, shakes her rattle.

She calls: “Big Sister let my Small Sister

come to me.” She does: out from the coral

shadows a shadow rising, a shadow

vast, vast as the tide’s rip, twisting current,

rising into song. I was there. I know

you don’t think women can do this. Pregnant

ghosts will scorn you for that. They love Nali,

though. I rowed. She sang and Femme de requin

came to have her snout rubbed, to feast on prayer.

Sisters swam here until men trawled this sea

down to its ghosts. The price of a shark fin

is when you call and only ghosts answer.

][][

Notes:

Femme de requin is French for shark woman. The inspiration of this poem came from watching Dennis O’Rourke’s 1982 documentary, The Sharkcallers of Kontu.

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all that sluices, all that spumes, crew of two, crushing depths, fathoms, mine brine, sea poem, shark poem, sonnet

Build me an underwater boat a crew

of two might handle. I’ll be your gray god

among waves. Dreams of drowning, of rescue,

of shear waters. The same ghost shark that’s gnawed

on you gnawed me, I see. From a strange wave

we both were born. From the shark that chants, shark

that mourns. Build for me the boat that I crave.

To slip through seas. To plunge into the dark.

To sink. To descend. Crushing depths do not

frighten me. — Only being lost from you does.

Only a life spent on land. We: sea. We:

brine. Come: be mine. A crew of two. We’re what

ghost sharks dream of. All that spumes. All that sluices.

All that fathoms. Love deep as the high sea.

memories of my ghost sista

~ the dead are never satisfied

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