whale tale

by Ursula Shepherd

It was like that growing up: sunlight 

glinting through picture windows

curtains fluttering on the breeze, new wood

-paneled station wagon parked in the driveway, 

as if 

everything were all right, as if life 

were ordinary and we like everybody else

but 

that whale lay between us, decaying

in the living room. No one spoke of it –

I noticed it, first, I think,  

when I was three: the arctic space 

between them sunlight couldn’t warm, hands 

that never touched, stark silence,

no fighting, just that whale trapped 

in web-net, this family held hostage

by my unintended birth.

Ursula Shepherd lives in the Pacific Northwest with her Australian Cattle Dog mix and husband. She used to be an ecologist, and writes to stay sane in this chaotic world. Her poetry has appeared in, among others, Big Wing Review, Passionfruit, Unbroken, Sheila-Na-Gig, Minnow, Grim and Gilded, Ekphrastic Review, and The Orchards.