Behemoth

An object poem

A child’s bauble of wooden mold to set upon a glass display,
its eyes inlaid with pins of gold to blindly mark the passing days,
A lump of polished cedar lays its belly on the placid sea
Of glass that bears, invisibly, its frozen, flailing ecstasy.
How, like a crowbar, lifts its tail to pry the waves and sound.
Yet no harpoon or crashing wave could bear this creature down.
Yet belly up its course may turn it in the churning foam.
Its teardrop body bears its breast to bask in simulated sun.
A child giggling marks its look as of a lamp if grasped by tail.
How fitting that his frigid nights are lit by oil of the whale.
Oh, teardrop bauble, simple thing, facsimile leviathan,
What knows he of your frame?
What dreams he of the hunts of man that gave a twofold fame?