When I’m alone in my room sometimes I stare at the wall, & in the back of my mind I hear my conscience call

me Ishmael. Call me sailor. But not

captain. Call me fishhook. Clean.

Call me multipurpose fish scale

weighing self-obsession. Call me fish

tail in a siren’s silk sheets. Thief

in the night. Buccaneer. Call me

multipurpose fish scale singing

motherfucker, then calling it good.

Call me lukewarm algae eater

upchucked. Call me match head struck

against hollow whale walls. Call me

faith’s phosphorus irritation. The-Bible-

study-leading-Sea-World-trainer-

dead-between-Shamu’s-teeth. Call me

freightliner hull hacking through a baby

humpback. Extinct & extinguished. Son

of a slave girl expelled to the desert

for being himself. Call me

miracle. Opposite mirage. Three parts sea

but bountiful land. Call me mangy

pasture. Wild buffalo. Archer. Arrow.

Call me sheared. Call me back

to the shepherd. Call me lamb.