Rajiv Mohabir

Omura’s Whale

Balaenoptera omura

In 2015 a new species of rorqual

spy hopped into human

consciousness. Once called

a dwarf fin whale we also mistook

it as a pygmy Bryde’s whale

but is more closely related

to the blue, and still one

of the least known whale species

according to marine biologists,

with asymmetric coloration,

up to forty feet long

according to some sources,

which causes me to ask

why it is so hard to see what

presents itself in complexity—

that we look for shapes

of other animals in the clouds;

why we need to define

hierarchies and family webs

in order for category and rule; why

we burn to remake others

in our own image and say

It’s what God did when

we are both god and anti-god,

and in knowing itself surely,

we never will know. Despite

my sapiens-ness’s bipedal

brain, I choose to remain hidden

from god and God. But like any

god I see you not as you

are, but as I am.

Pygmy Sperm Whale

            Kogia breviceps

The most commonly stranded

cetacean in the Southeast,

this dwarf, though not

the dwarf sperm whale who

is an altogether separate species,

named for the spermaceti

that assists in echolocation,

is also known for its intestinal

sac that stores up to three

gallons of what NOAA calls

reddish-brown liquid and employs

a squid tactic of clouding the water

in a murky veil should some threat

encroach, though its main

environmental threats are, you

guessed it: human,

entanglements in tackle,

gear, and vessel strikes—

what a marvel of sperm and shit,

the whale is a fetish

of its range from the Caribbean,

to the Gulf of Mexico,

to the Atlantic, to the Pacific,

its entire eleven and a half

feet and one thousand pounds

make it relatively cute,

and charismatic with

a rounded dorsal, wilting ashore,

until the tractors come

to pull it away like in Indialantic,

Florida, or to euthanize

a stranded individual bashed

against the rocks in Malibu, where,

about this species, yes, but

also about how to protect

any blessed thing that blows

its own shofar in praise

of the lord of life

and death, that pulses out

its timbrel, of those in dance

halleluhu hallelujah as a crown,

we know nothing and

care even less.

Minke Whale

Balaenoptera acutorostrata

The most abundant rorqual

arrow shaped, scientists now find

to rumble, growl, groan, grunt.

You can listen on the internet,

how whaling has changed,

they are of least concern.

Once mistaken for fin or blue,

their meat is most plentiful

hanging behind glass cases,

songless. Give a white man a knife,

a lance with exploding tip,

a star or shield-shaped badge—

Who won’t he kill?