Susan Krane

Crowd in the Bardo

Floating on its side, a crescent moon fallen from the sky, the whale opens and closes his mouth, soundless. Things wash ashore here in the shadow of the Bay Bridge: forever plastics, this rare young minke whale. The tide is receding. His skin, flaying from the sun. Half a tail fin reaches up. A signal flag, a flare.

The beach is barricaded by orange cones and safety tape. Firemen clutch useless hoses. Bobbing in the water’s lapping, the body is a dirge—last strains of an accordion, his throat collapsing into a heap of pleats. At the tideline, long-legged seabirds feed in the muck of the mudflats, hurried. They walk on water.

For a week, the crowd gathers, sharing updates passed along by the tv cameraman. There is a stillness before death. The marine rescue crew in yellow waders becomes death doctor, then coroner. Now the crowd stands staring at a raised hacksaw, now at the slow seep of red through the black suffered meat of him. Necroscopy, whispers the tv guy. Toxic tides.

I am not religious but my mouth incants a kaddish. The long assonant end-rhymes: bo, mo, vro, yo, sho. Oh, lost whale, lone whale. Lone is each person who looks on, shuddering in the chill of the whale. Once he was fast as a speed boat. Now: the crowd’s vigil, the saw working its way down the shell of his great body.

aliveness like song
hanging above
pleading

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About the Author

Susan Krane lives in the San Francisco Bay area. Her work has recently appeared in You Blew It: A Miracle Monocle Anthology (University of Louisville, 2024) and The Shrew literary zine. She maintains a daily haiku practice before getting on with the day as an art consultant and volunteer ESL tutor.

 

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