Dismantling the great whale, Snooks Arm

 	“A work that always fetches an audience if carried out on shore!” 
 		–Edith Watson. Photograph caption, undated (c. 1915)

The white fat looks like foam, a lather

spilling over the beast as though the men

were doing the animal some great

favour by bathing it. The whale

is lodged on its side on the slipway,

flanked by clapboard-cased structures, their lines

a league of calm horizons. One man stands

atop it, flensing knife honed and quick. One

fin leans casual, as though to beckon,

come closer, witness the new century

at work.

Tensile baleen won’t cinch the waists

of the world’s wealthy wives much longer.

Soon, the machinery of the age will forge

onward, ever smooth and unperturbed.

We’re almost through here, blubber

dragged away to the fires, flesh

stripped from bone, bristled

plates ripped from jaw. Ribs

a bloodied cavern.

The photograph is a black and white

memory, proof that once we knew a time

when mere men broke Leviathan

into his elements,

melted monsters into lamplight.