radio for help

one grey monday
i walked the length
of the seashore with a
metal detector

i found a whale
the wretch beached itself
its atrophied limbs twitched feebly
as blue-black gnats drank its eyes

out of its blowhole
snaked a thin black wire
a radio antennae
perhaps jonah was still in its belly
frozen in a grotesque pose
like a fossil of a caveman
perhaps jonah was
composing his invisible s.o.s.
up until the moment when
asphyxiation overtook him

perhaps the ubiquitous hissing that you hear
after every other living thing has gone extinct
is not blood rushing through your ears

perhaps it is cosmic elevator music

perhaps it is the sound of
memoirs / living wills / death poems / suicide notes
recorded on an ancient 4-track
broadcasted in a constant loop
through tiny speakers
hidden in seashells