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Helen Laycock

@helenlaycock.bsky.social

2.1K followers 830 following 1.1K posts

Poet nominated for Pushcart & Best of Net. Winner of Black Bough Poetry Chapbook contest, shortlisted for Broken Spine Arts Chapbook contest. Book of the Month at The East Ridge Review. Children’s fiction & short stories. https://linktr.ee/helen.laycock

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · Nov 20

This poem was inspired by the true story of Tahlequah, an Orca mother, who carried her dead baby for 17 days, for thousands of miles... evidence that animals do experience #grief.

Shared today for #twentyforecopoetry
Published in 'ELEMENTAL'.

#poetry #Orca

#Blueskypoets #poetsofBlueky #SkyPoets

AN OCEAN OF ORCA TEARS by Helen Laycock

Tahlequah corkscrews,
throwing her belly to the light,
showing the sky her feat
through the wobble of water;

she has made flesh and fin
in the time the earth
has rolled around the sun.

Like water from a whip,
she spins out the little life –
Tali –
tail first,
a dark fizz of celebration
exploding like her silent joy.

Parallel shadows,
they are carbon copies,
paper and ink,
swimming with
magnetic hearts,

noses softly drilling
the beginning of miles.

Thirty sleek minutes
of nourishment,
mimic, brushing,
no rush,
eye to eye,
knowing love

before the stopped breath.
The tsunami of grief.
Death.

The calf is limp,
bent over her mother’s beak
like a wilted stalk,
brined,
dying,
tail a broken arrowhead
skimming the waves.

Tahlequah adorns herself
with a Tali headdress,
hour upon hour,
straining to keep it afloat,
as though it is made of flowers
the water will brown.

For a thousand miles,
death squats on her face,
replaces the horizon,
the rise and fall of
seventeen suns,
the spill of the milky moon,
night after night after night.

The carcass rots as she
carries it aloft,
bearing it
like a saved gift.

She dives when it
slides
and sinks,

scoops the corpse
like a haul of silver,

lifts it to the sun,
maybe in prayer,

maybe to warm its blood.

She follows the pod,
eyes pleading
as though a healer will emerge,
and they tip the body
from whale to whale,
feeling the grief,
sharing the load,

until she

sheds the load.

She does not turn as it
slips away,
submerges in her wake.

Waves swill
the blemish of death
from her skin;

it braids the tide of a far land,

but she bears the cliff fall
of its weight.
Feels the density of emptiness,
pressing, pressing,

though she is now
wholly indiscernible
from the rest.

From 'ELEMENTAL'

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 10h

My pleasure. ❤️

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 11h

It was obvious! I was just being dim. 😎

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 12h

Oh, of course! I completely missed that (I have been reading so many poems so quickly!). I love that detail, Rachel. 🌞

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 12h

😘

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 14h

My pleasure, Debra. ❤️

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 14h

Good to hear! ❤️

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Excellent imagery and clever use of form to reinforce the self-inflicted message.

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

'Menacing my skin'

Great verb choice!

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Oh! 💔

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

'so personal
that i feel the need to look away'

Human behaviour and the self-imposed need to acquire permission to interact is so complex.

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Fabulous soundscape when read aloud!

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

😢

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Love this spillage of thought/confession/denial!

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Beautifully written, David.

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

I was so warmed by the opening stanza, John. Such a tender revisiting of that baby/daddy connection… so it was hugely disturbing to hear the change of events.
‘I may never know/which particular betrayal/inspired that loss of grace’, and then that ‘swagger’ and expletive really cut my heart for you.

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

'always an after' ❤️

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Looking forward to the one waiting in the wings... ❤️

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Mon plaisir!

🎵 ❤️🎶

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Absolutely. Breaking through that space changes everything.

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

Done with aplomb!

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

That inner voice is so recognisable, echoing the imagined voices of the masses, and then there is that beautiful moment of quiet where nothing matters but the peace and beauty of a new day. 💛

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

‘Pretty was a mask that pinched’
‘no one knew who I was trying/to be’

The act of fitting in so often results in the losing of identity as your piece so poignantly conveys, Tracie. So sad to read...

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 15h

‘Scattered seed first/around a pecking chicken-brain’
Clinched it, Ju!

Love how you extend this metaphor:

‘all letter-husks digested’ and later ‘fermenting-compost heap…becoming soon new maggot-words’.

My heart goes out to that ‘other poet’ whose page subsequently becomes infested!! 😬

Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 16h

Burgeoning with delicious detail, & rich in metaphor:

‘A dream is something tenebrous/that lives in fractures and marrows, that comes for me/like a gorge of gray wolves’

‘the seam that is always giving, where the doctor did/his stitches like someone drunk on the moon’

Brilliant!

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Helen Laycock @helenlaycock.bsky.social · 16h

Fabulous! 🖤

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