ODE TO THE SPERM WHALE BRAIN
Instead of a brain, you were told, a soup.
It was true, you’d seen it. Crack the head:
no geode packed with thoughts,
just sludge. You could scoop it from a living
whale’s skull and it wouldn’t be missed.
The massive forehead all style, no substance.
If you think it has no brain, it’s easier.
You can harpoon that fleshy nothing.
You can teach your body not to recoil
from the red cloud in the sea.
You can teach yourself to think
moral thoughts instead of feeling them.
In truth, a sperm whale’s brain is six times
bigger than ours. The brain you failed
to see had melted in the caustic heat
of its own body, wrenched from the sea.
But you didn’t know that.
So there was no brain. And the reddening
sun—which had fled headfirst
into the sea—was not really injured.
And you were the smartest animal.
MUSCLE SCAR
The closest I get to imagining being an oyster
is to clench my eyes, squeeze them till my lids wrinkle,
and think of the oyster in its shell, sucked in tight
as an eyeball. I concentrate on the scar.
Only some oysters make pearls, but every empty shell
has a muscle scar. A violet thumbprint pressed
into the nacre. Imagine holding onto something so tightly
that it changes colour. Maybe the sun does this,
though I’ve never thought of light as seizing what it touches.
Even before I knew what the scars were,
I sensed the purposiveness. Colour this intense is usually
a message of some kind, stay away or come closer.
Minimally, it’s an effort.
Because of the ocean, I think of Odysseus, who,
swept overboard and fearing for his life, clings to the cliff
so tightly (like an octopus, Homer says, but he could have said
oyster) his skin stays stuck after he’s pried off.
I still don’t know whether the inky purple patches
count as injuries. But it’s got to hurt to hold on that hard,
and I know it hurts to let go.
Sue Sinclair (she/her) has published seven poetry books, most recently New-Fangled Rose (Goose Lane Editions, 2026). All her book have been nominated for or have won a variety of awards. Sue is editor of The Fiddlehead literary journal and teaches creative writing at the University of New Brunswick on Wolastoqiyik territory.