Samuel Fitzpatrick

Samuel Fitzpatrick was born in Nürnberg, Germany on August 12, 1986 to Monica Christine and Wilburn Dexter Fitzpatrick. He is currently a junior attending The George Washington University in Washington, DC, and hopes to matriculate into The Howard University School of Law.

 

The Whale:

The whale, the old ocean’s guardian,
patrolling the other world beneath the waves,
to protect its secrets from
our documentaries, our television screens,
into whose glare we sink our eyes,
watching what lies just beyond
the eternal static hum,
humming like your
blubbery song
filled with sadness
and anger for
being trapped
behind this Sea World glass
prison
that is your fish bowl
and when water
spills over the brim then
children lift their hands
in praise of your
learning to leap in
a choreographed display of
tamed behavior
that never would occur
naturally out at
sea
We see you fly
and dive
again into
this confinement
and the prices paid
for your obedient feats
wins you a feast of
fish no longer swimming with your descendents
because they breathed their last breaths in buckets
drowning here where there is no water.