“Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply
any injustice committed against anyone,
anywhere in the world.” -Che Guevara

That summer a walrus was euthanized in Norway, later
they built her a statue along the harbor: a marble fallen
martyr. Her given-name, Freya, Old Norse for “Noble Lady,”
goddess namesake of love and beauty; of war and death.

The dangerously close tourists with their whooping chatter
were spared, but expensive boats were sunk with tusk
and blubber. Was she a seaside-dwelling Che Guevara?
A revolutionary, or a meme of hot girl summer? Peeling
off her bikini top, getting sloppy, cracking her highball
glass—a walrus in pink, heart-shaped sunglasses.

By the time the first wisps of fall air left breath
marks on camera lenses, her damages outweighed
her charm. CNN: Authorities debating her end.
People commuting home from the office, making
cabbage rolls stuffed with brown lentils, making
love or not making love, losing no sleep over
an oceanic mammal.

By the morning, she’d already been killed.
Our spotlights are useless. Our Herculean, distracted
grief is useless. We are useless, and also good
for nothing. Hot Girl Summer into Not Girl Summer.
As in, Picture me not even here.
As in, Watch how quickly I can disappear.

Picture tons of peonies under the half-ton statue,
noble and useless. Picture the walrus, flopping into the next
fresh wave, sea foam in her wrinkles like silver barrettes
or bracelet charms. Picture her cliff bathing under solstråler
or rolling onto maritime vessels until they submit. Picture her
laughing on her land, where the taste of fame and the quick-shift
between human affection and the riptide of our consumption
would become her last meal.

Angelica Whitehorne is a writer living in Durham, NC with published / forthcoming work in The Round, Folio Literary Journal, JMWW, and Poetry South, among others. She is the author of the chapbook, The World Is Ending, Say Something That Will Last (Bottle Cap Press, 2022). Besides being a devastated poet, Angelica is a Marketing Content Writer for a clean energy loan company. She holds pollinators, legumes, and her eight-pound Yorkiepoo in the highest regard. You can find more of her work on Instagram at a.w.ords and on her website: angelicawhitehorne.com.