Poetry Magazine
Harbor Porpoise
Off what Thornbjörg calls the stern,
or what I refer to as where
you look upon the place you
cannot return, one broke on through.
With little purpose but to tease,
eye our sound ship, or take leave
of the dog whistle our prop
pitches ineptly into the eerie.
Suturing the path to where
it was bound, it hung split seconds
in a realm unsoundable by its sonar.
If only we could enter our dreams thus.
The cruise ship’s marriage counselor
spoke to me in Norwegian, and I
agreed, knowing there was only
so much she could have said
as it took the sun—and unlike
beach stones once you get them
home, kept its sodden hue
going black into sea.
Source: Poetry (November 2010).
Biography
Jeramy Dodds’s first collection, Crabwise to the Hounds (Coach House Books, 2008), won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. He grew up in Ontario, Canada and currently lives in Reykjavík, Iceland.
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