Written piece
How the Blubber Boy Came to Be
Shantell Powell
Canada
About this piece
This recounts an Inuit traditional tale about death, love, and resilience.
How the Blubber Boy Came to Be
The young widow is clad in the patience of ancestors.
Her hands are capable.
Her needle thrusts strong.
Her stitches neat.
But in the other world she isn’t sewing.
In Adlivun she endures
Like a brave one on his knees—
Harpoon in hand by the breathing hole.
Waiting for that hole to be filled.
Waiting for that seal to be pierced.
We are sinew stitched into the skins of the world,
And sometimes we break.
Remember that broken seams may be mended,
And two pieces torn apart may be rejoined.
In her sojourn
The tide of spirits flow around her tattooed thighs
Sky people, land people, sea people,
Fur and feather and hair and scales
All are there,
Awaiting their namesakes,
Or maybe something else.
On earth, her lips move.
“Oh my love,
You are worth the wait.”
Her hands are slick with blubber
From Sedna’s slippery knuckles,
And she and her anointed lover
Are reborn sliding upon and
into one another.