A photograph inspires vertigo.

You look because that is your nature.

The clouds are footprints receding.

Sky is water. It grips you by the hair.

Your soul yawns out of your body

for the airplane’s sleek innards.

Comfortable, plugged in, you listen to love songs

in the whale’s stomach. Digestion.

This now is how we move. Entrance

precedes and begets departure.

—

Jacob Oet is a senior at University School in Hunting Valley, Ohio. He is the author of two chapbooks of poetry: Metamorphosis (Kattywompus Press) and Peeling the Apple (NightBallet Press). Jacob’s poetry and images appear in Cream City Review, Illuminations, Yemassee, Straylight, and Superstition Review, among others. His awards include the 2011 Younkin-Rivera Poetry Prize and the 2011 Ohioana Robert Fox Award.