My Own Undoing

Yet again, I dreamt of captive whales—  

orcas circling the tank, their black backs  

breaking the water, then vanishing,  

their tails trained to lift them  

from one side to the other,  

while my dead mother holds my hand  

and assures me,  

“Oh, don’t fret. They really like that.”

I wake to the fear still gnawing,  

a beaver worrying at a trunk,  

wearing it down by instinct—  

the fear that I, too,  

have become the loyal, fervent servant  

of my own undoing.

I could count, but don’t,  

the times I’ve made life-or-death decisions.  

Somehow, the deaths don’t stay with me.  

It’s the lives—the living—  

and the endless circles,  

the hoops held low enough  

to jump through,  

high enough  

to make the crowd applaud.