Nathaniel Calhoun: ‘the shark wonders’

the shark wonders

gumming the soft parts of a done whale and mulling
over the prospects of the toothpicky warms
where eyes burn from the melted sheen
the old white pointer wonders if rubber bacon
might prop the dorsal fin back up or
bring forth a final row of teeth.

she noses round the shallows deciding
if her final chapter will satisfy a curiosity
that she is decades resisting.

for some, a bucket list breaks the character down—
turns to lies the life lived—the true self sacrificed
all along to a false self slain in the end.

Nathaniel Calhoun