Against the sail masts’ offbeat taps onto each other,
bay bells mixing in with tinny harbor chimes,
distant buoys throwing their soft moans to the wind,

all of them singing to the moon in a whale-like croon
that bellows love songs from the sea bed floor,

I am swept back to my first whale sighting,
the young humpback’s notes rippling out
before it hit the headland, its shroud of sound lost to sea.

Rocked by waves, stranded beneath the blue moon
at Point Bonita, everything turned a deadly quiet

where high winds once rammed ships cliff side,
dumping potatoes, lumber, cotton, and gold, all of it
sunk into the deep, unlike the ballooning beached corpse

in descending light, tonight its heft of ghost at my side,
pressing hard into me the tremendous weight of sea.

Andrena Zawinski has two prize winning collection of poetry, “Something About” and “Traveling in Reflected Light.” Her latest book, “Landings,” is forthcoming in 2017. She has also authored four chapbooks. She is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com and founder of the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Potluck and Salon. She lives in Alameda.

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