Why the blue whale risked its neck

Blue whales descended from pre-Socratic philosophers

who walked to the sea, dropped their papyrus,

shed their robes and waded into the waves

under an ancient Aegean sun.

Naked they swam, grabbing the sea’s shoulders

that bore them out to open water,

the brine brushing off their spindly limbs and digits.

The wine dark waves wore away neurotic details

like earlobe and eyebrow, ponytail and fingernails,

and divisive necks, which the water pressed until

they telescoped in, reminded by their bodies

that the body is the mind.

Their quarrelsome cocks retracted like claws,

leaving scars on thickening skin

worn down to bare life in bright thought.

Their fervid brains gradually cooled

as they graduated down the stone-heavy

ocean depths, ponderously navigating stoic icebergs,

inductive kelp jungles, the sophistry of kraken and shark,

floating for days in contemplation.

As they inhaled clouds of krill and cynic plankton,

they translated dialectic into dialects

of sonorous bellow and squealing eureka,

folding logic like origami lobsters

to festoon the vast hulls of their heads.

Submarine hulks of random excess reverie

submerged in discipline’s purity, pure as distilled

hemlock, pure as harpoons.