I try to revive a blue whale

I wrote about whales last week in “Ulterior Motives.” It’s odd then that this time last year I posted “In the ocean one night,” a poem about whales that I had transcribed directly from a dream. Yes, I kid you not. This was one of my genuine, vivid sleep-time dreams. The poem inspired the title

Scrambled Eggs

  Into your hands I commend the beating of tonight’s eggs. This will be the last meal of solid food. — When my Dad was in the final stages of his cancer, one of the few things he ate was scrambled eggs. That period of my life still circles in my mind. It was a strange

Most versatile

The morning egg is most nutritious, the lunchtime egg substantial; eggs for dinner are a light, quick fix. Boiled, scrambled, poached or fried, to a life of laying thanks is owed for this. — On the dining-table of our kitchen lives a refillable plastic peppercorn grinder. In absent-minded moments when I’m forking stir fry vegetables

In the ocean one night

I try to revive a blue whale with raw eggs from plastic bowls in different colours laid out in a wooden fishing boat. To do this you must put two or three eggs together in each bowl, watch their yolks lilt to the tide, then pour them through the whale’s sieve-like mouth. — This poem

Five Consequences of Repeated Actions

This month I once again neglect to pay into a pension, fertilize a good egg at ovulation or further my career. Untoward outcomes will result! In twenty years it will not matter that I didn’t write this poem today. — Not to fear. Come the end of next week, I plan to be on a