PROSE POETRY
SEAN WHALEN
THE RIVER OTTER
Cloaked in pre-dawn oak and maple I watch a slinky tube sled through the skiff of snow that frosted his world overnight. He moves in curves and thrusts, rolls and parries. He is epee slicing open the water on the edge of ice capping the eddy, diving for crawdads minnows and clams. I long to swim with him, run agile fingers over smooth rocks, stir up silt with webbed toes, twist in impossible angles to capture fingerling catfish, emerge into subzero air, ice encasing fur, munch the delicacy head first, leave barbs and scraps for scavengers. Blood blooms a bright rose on the black and white table. An early crow caws approval and now I want to fly but am bound to trudge down the bank, sledge awkwardly over the sand, arrange the fins and forked tails like cast petals or solar rays in a circle around the slick platter. Over my shoulder the sun entangles in the treetops. Given a long minute it will wrest itself free.
Sean Whalen is a retired health and safety professional from Pilot Mound, Iowa. He received his MA from Iowa State in Creative Writing. Recent poems have appeared in New Feathers, Thimble, Gyroscope, and others, and are forthcoming in Floating Acorn, Chiron, and Naugatuck River (semifinalist - narrative contest).
