Matriarch
We swam with the pod, the waters deep and blue and flooded with our anger.
We carried harpoon guns. The weapons taken from men so we might use their own sins against them.
Beyond the islands we protected, the sea was emptier than it should be, the waters left to blacken and waste. Still, the pod watched these waters, and we guarded our ungiven hearts. It was in our natures to defend what did not belong to men.
We would do so again.
Our target was an approaching dead boat, its shadow a promised storm. The men aboard meant to steal the remains of the great whales whose metal skeletons were buried beneath Bismarck palms.
As we surfaced, long hair dripping, shouts of alarm doused me. The air smelled gulfweed and red algae and menace. Our battle-sisters circled below, rifts of bright scales stretched across once-dead skin, glinting beneath the ripples. Each had stories of pain at men’s hands.
We sang a warning of the flood to come. We gripped harpoon guns, the lily iron a mouthful of nettled barbs. The pod would protect the islands at our back where we nested beneath the fluorescent glow of hoary bones.
We would do so, again, and again.
The captain tried to cajole us. He peered down from the deck and said we were pretty fish, our hair long as seagrass. His voice was the salty taste of haddock left in a lobster trap. He thought to tame us. Maybe worse. And what men touched in short time became theirs alone.
His men hooted, emboldened by their greater numbers, their soft bodies protected only by thin shells of oiled leather.
For too long, the sea had been claimed by men. Our pod knew their song of greed by heart. A theft we couldn’t forgive.
Our anger was a rising current. A tidal wave of white-rimmed defiance. We sneered, showing sharp teeth in answer. For a wound to heal, it must be cleaned out first.
Yet the captain called out again, offering a trade in a soothing voice. He wanted a great whale heart, and in exchange, he would give me any trinket I asked for.
Any trinket? We laughed at the fool.
Were we not once thrown into the waters we now called home, our limbs caught in ghost nets, coated in salt rime, tangled in nylon threads and bottle rings, floating among polystyrene foam and clove-scented cigarette butts?
Did the great whales not wake us, give us these second skins, such that the debris in the brackish water caught between our new scales?
Within, the power of the great whales stirred. We ordered the attack. Our battle-sisters cut holes into the hull and the sea rushed in to fill what was empty.
We sang a dirge, the groans of metal and dying men eaten by the sea, drifting down into darkness and shimmer.
And so we who bore were reborn. Again and again and again.
© 2024 Anna Madden
About the Author
Anna Madden is a Rhysling Award-nominated poet. Her fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, Haven Spec, Small Wonders, and elsewhere. In free time, she makes birch forests out of stained glass. Follow her on Twitter/X @anna_madden_ or visit her website at annamadden.com.