KATY GERO

Whalefall (excerpt)

Let’s pretend I have felt the smooth bell of a jellyfish in its place of birth,
let’s pretend I become the merman of my childhood dreams, that I needn’t
large lungs because I can take in what I need from the sea, that the kelp at
my feet is a home and not the kind that scares me, let’s pretend I have a
green thumb, that I know how the tide comes and goes, that the birds
outside my window—let’s pretend I know their names, can distinguish
their calls, can note the feather in their tail is an indication of something, I
don’t know what, a feather in the hat, a bandana in the pocket, let’s
pretend that knowing something about how atoms bond together to form
solids makes me useful, makes me a good person, does more than inspire
wonder and fear at the depth of my ignorance, let’s pretend that
decomposition is what I do when I die and not when I leave a grieving
friend because sometimes I can’t stay at that depth for so long let’s pretend
I cry at my grandfather’s death and not at what it does to my mother let’s
pretend I know my grandparents let’s pretend the threads of my history
amount to something let’s pretend I know how to pronounce my last name
let’s pretend jellyfish have one name that they are one thing that they
aren’t parasols and operas and breaking hearts all at once that they don’t
live forever that they aren’t all so different that the world isn’t all so
different let’s pretend we have time let’s pretend we have enough time let’s
pretend there is time enough to wonder about all this. 

Katy Ilonka Gero is a poet, essayist, and computer scientist. Her writing has been published in Electric Literature, Pigeonholes, Catapult, and more. She was a Winter-Spring 2020 Brooklyn Poets Fellow and a 2021 Tin House Winter Workshop attendee. She is pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at Columbia University and working on a poetry manuscript called ‘whalefall’.