Professor Yeti

This biweek we’ll look at the birth of a baby blue whale. The excerpt below is taken from Paul Metcalf’s The Middle Passage. The backslashes have been inserted into the text to indicate line breaks in the original.

the mother blue whale bends her trunk and tail, whips them back / her / vagina flares pink / the fetus shifts within, pounding her flanks / / with bicornuate uterus / — the musculature in an inner circular / and outer longitudinal / layer — / the peristaltic uterine contractions / — with gravitation — / turn the fetus, / in the rich embryonic fluid, / from head to tail presentation, / / and the fetal flukes drive to the outlet. / Mother contracts, / and the tail appears . . . / . . . / retreats . . . / reappears; / she convulses, / the infant slides partway — / but the flippers catch, / and hold, / and the mother rests, / the infant half-born. / / With final thrust, / in a flood of pink / the infant slips out / the umbilicus — drawn taut — snaps / and the mother blue whale — placenta expelled — turns to her child, nudges him to the surface. / / Cold water, dry, cool air, nudge and urge the infant lungs.

Source: Paul Metcalf: Collected Works, Volume One, Coffee House Press, 1996.

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