The Right Whale in Iowa

By Debora Greger b. 1949 Debora Greger

The shag rug of a Great Plains buffalo,

a flightless bird

gone to stone: over its fellow keepsakes,

into the archives of air,

the whale hauled a harvest of dust.

In the ripples of glass

sealed over songbird skins, I wavered.

What could be said for love?

From the Full-Serv to the Self-Serv Island

at the Gulf station next door,

landlocked waves shivered in a row of corn.

The great flukes lifted.

A Milky Way scarred the underside more vast

than the Midwestern night.

Dark cargoes would give themselves up

to these shallows

that waited to take home the sailor,

home to the sea

of fossilized coral upon whose shoals

just down the road

the motels of Coralville lay sprawled.

Here would lie a ring

scratched by a scrivener with florid hand,

In thy breast my heart does rest

flung back to shore, here rest two coins

face to face, joined

by the salt that turned them faceless

as they turned to each other.

Source: Off-Season at the Edge of the World: Poems (1994)

Biography

Poet and artist Debora Greger earned her BA from the University of Washington and her MFA from the University of Iowa. She has published numerous books of poetry, including Men, Women, and Ghosts (2008), and her work has been included in issues of Best American Poetry. As a reviewer for Publishers Weekly observed, Greger “rarely rejoices, though she can surely console; her pruned-back, autumnal sensibility and her balanced lines . . .

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