Dorsal Blues

Puckering up to glass, waiting for

thunder,

I think of an abandoned marine

park in France

where dolphins and orcas wait

to be fed.

My cats have it good. They lick

themselves

on my brand-new quilt. Above

them, a painting

from an ex-lover waits for me

to take it

down. In its abstractness, I find

a dorsal,

so I keep it up—for the dolphins

and orcas—

and Nebraska is sea once again.

Thunder curls

its lips from under clouds, rain

comes down.

The lightning—I think—sure looks

like a dorsal too.

Rayni K. Wekluk is the author of Garbage City Poems (Thirty West Publishing House). Her poetry and nonfiction are published in Folio, The Linden Review, Collision, Passages North (forthcoming), and others. She holdsa BFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) and a BA in English (CNF) from the University of Nebraska Omaha.