States of Poetry - Poems
States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Jonah' by Kate Middleton
by Kate Middleton •
The ‘greate fyshe’, terrible
colossus, dark cathedral of days
and nights, arrests
lost Jonah in his flight. Three
days and nights spent
in wet earnest prayer, dread
dowse of whale’s
appetite, drowse of oceanic
will. It is a liturgy
of krill. A pinwheel spun
in blur of hope, despair.
The shroud of stomach’s wall,
grave chamber, draped
in sacred bile. Three days lost.
Three nights. Till their
cadence, amen, resolves.
Kate Middleton