A Creature Utterly Small Can Still Soothe Itself         —Ginger Ko


That the seas 
do not collect 
what they could 
is a gift, a gift. 
They were 
too logical, 
were not made 
obedient 
at certain death 
and could not 
be compelled 
to dig their own 
graves. They watched 
the ocean mammals 
engage in 
modifications before 
their extinctions. 
Young males 
grabbing young 
for rape when 
the females starved. 
Porpoises and whales 
scraping orphans 
to death. How there 
was not a growing 
outwards but 
an insistent furling 
inwards into 
a more and more 
coiled bud. 
It was not possible, 
but it happened—
every sea 
smelled dead. 
The cloying syrup 
of decay, overnight, 
bonded to every drop. 
There was 
still something, 
an uncontrollable 
quantity to each 
new automaton. 
The itching knits 
of healing, the froth 
that streams down 
tree bark. Oh, manners 
is what stands between 
then and now. 
The automatons 
are willing 
to narrate parallels, 
an algorithmic myth 
for actual actions, 
but cannot forget 
the present, cannot 
erase or ignore. 
Manners—how is that 
kind of denial trained? 
A sadness/caution 
drags at them 
like the slick weight 
of running water.

Ginger Ko

Ginger Ko is a graduate student at the University of Georgia, where she teaches writing and Women’s Studies. She is the author of Motherlover (Bloof Books) and Inherit (Sidebrow), as well as several chapbooks. Her poetry and essays can be found in American Poetry Review, The Offing, VIDA Review, and elsewhere. You can find her online at www.gingerko.com

ISSN 2472-338X
© 2019