Seated at the starboard rail,
the Russian sailor
starts to play a mournful air,
perhaps a favorite of his grandmother's.
 
Buoyant, walruses gather
to scrum like an audience
at a packed performance finding seats.
Then they grunt
and look around to see who's here.
You see the same behavior in New York.
Some butt in for a better view
despite the empty bleachers
of a massive Barents Sea,
its proscenium of mist
hung along a distant snowless scarp.
 
The sailor switches to a new tune,
a romantic waltz.
The walruses jostle in to hear.
They need not know the gliding dance,
the light placement of the hand
about the waist, the background
swirling past a partner's face,
struck as they are by the rhythms
of a novel mating call.


© by Eric Forsbergh.
Used with the author's permission.