You come splashing through the waves: a young, flamboyant sail.
In love & can’t shut up about it. Comically, canonically queer.
Your language spills and bubbles. Maybe you were born to be a whale.

Your voice is like a ghost of mine, too raw and rough to veil:
The spermaceti! The calving grounds! The muscled men! The oiled spear!
You come splashing! Through the waves! Young! Flamboyant! Sail!

Your wanting words are wild and move too much like a gale—
that’s what the bastards told me, too. They’re truly the most trying kind of drear.
But your language spills and bubbles. You were born to be a whale.

Everywhere I go, your gay & laughing mouth appears. Like a motif in a folktale,
you’re a small ferocious prayer: Let our earnestness not become the thing we fear
through all the splashing and the waves. You, a young, flamboyant sail,

and me, a yearning stream. We both live at an unreasonable scale
for any time, in any ocean. Ishmael, with all your weighty flaws, I hold you dear,
your language, spills, & bubbles. You and I have both borne whales,

and I wish you’d listened when one tried to tell you: You don’t have to impale
the worlds you love to hold them. There are other ways to sing clear.
So come, splash through the waves, young & flamboyant. Sail
your language. Spill and bubble. You were born to be a whale.