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Beyond Autopsy
After swallowing 25 shopping bags instead of squid, 115 plastic cups rather than a school of fish; after choking down a lone shrimp in a snarl of nylon strings; after dozens of soda bottles, drinking straws, a pinwheel and a sparkly pair of Mickey Mouse flip-flops that must have looked like mating crabs; after rotting for weeks in jacuzzi warmth; after officials called in to do something pulled a parade of trash from its guts but wouldn’t declare a final cause of death; after they butchered what washed into the shallows; after fifteen men hauled the carcass ashore with hemp ropes; after the video went viral and was forgotten; after vultures and dogs were done; the bones of a thirty foot sperm whale opened to the sky and gave up the sea.
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Yoni Hammer-Kossoy
Yoni Hammer-Kossoy’s poems and translations appear internationally in numerous journals and anthologies. Originally from the US, Yoni lives in Israel with his family where he works as a writer, translator, and educator.