Abandoning the fear of being left behind

 The spirit of the whale will walk before the sand clogs up her baleen, before the low tide finds belly. Believe me. The sun will film it. The sun is an entire box of matches on fire, held up in front of the grin guilty of ignition. People will come and touch the body; children will press their entire existences against it.

 There will be officers, a minister, a dog.

 An old man braces cane into the minimal waves("the tail is the best propeller ever seen," he says to no one/to the ghost/to a singsong beat). The horizon throws helicopters, more eyes.

 From the window of a nearby hotel, a man is opening cans of beans with his heart. He spoons them into pockets with ladled bones, watches the funeral procession below.The whale is ink smudge, the man is crying. His tongue nervously picks at the seed stuck between teeth,  still to pockets those beans and still slippery pulp biting rounds of aluminum.

 "Another round for those gone tonight," the sailor says to the lifted glasses of his comrades. The bar lights reflect the rims and he smiles against the tears caused by the temporary burst of pure white.

 "For the whale."

 Sentiment echoed by the entire room, "For the whale."

Their voices join to rattle the bottles on the tables. And everyone drinks.