Kathryn Savage
Dolphin Pushes Dead Calf Through Florida Waters
She lifted the small body above the surface,
pushed it down under the water,
repeated the cycle. She was trying to revive the dead calf.
By now a familiar sight—the mother carrying the corpse
across the St. Petersburg canal so it would not sink to the seafloor.
She lifted the small body above the surface,
the researchers on board did not take the calf away
to perform a necropsy; they watched her
repeat the cycle. She was trying to revive the dead calf.
She worked like a mother — It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
She lifted the small body above the surface,
vocalized, touched her calf with her rostrum and pectoral fins.
Researchers never saw her feed; tissue drifted away from the corpse.
She repeated the cycle. She was trying to revive the dead calf
over the course of two days—her back underneath the body
lifting her child to light so no home could be made of its bones.
She lifted the small body above the surface,
repeated the cycle. She was trying to revive the dead calf.
Author’s note: The title is a modification from a Florida news headline. “It was more like the tipping/of an object toward the light” comes from the poem “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop (1946). The poem directly quotes and paraphrases a couple of sentences from Barbara J. King’s book How Animals Grieve.
Kathryn Savage reads “Dolphin Pushes Dead Calf Through Florida Waters”
Kathryn Savage is the author of Groundglass: An Essay. Her work has appeared in Ecotone, Guernica, Poets.org, VQR, and she is a frequent book review contributor to World Literature Today.