Photo by Mira Shivacheva
Has No Name
I trust a blue whale.
Of course, he has no name of his own,
but I’ve given him one.
No distinctive marks,
yet I can spot him easily
among the others.
We have our own
sonar connection.
Sometimes I call to him from shore—
the ocean soaking me to the chest inside—
with my private, mental ultrasound.
And he answers,
rising protectively above the water
with all his vast,
underwater silence,
then sinking slowly back into the tub.
He waits for me to tell him
my small, daily happenings,
to let him swallow them like krill
and carry them down
into the thinned darkness.
Sometimes he’s the one who seeks me.
He sends his echolocation;
we calibrate our radars
and locate each other.
With his monotone heart
he asks me to see the iceberg to my left
as ice in a drink—
the chill is temporary,
and more a softening than a freeze.
I only have to wait.
I only have to wait.
His lumbering pulse
doesn’t bring quick hope.
There are all kinds of strange connections.
At one end of ours,
my hands are frozen.
At the other—
his blood, warm on the harpoon.
MARIYAN KRACHUNOV holds a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and works as a Brand Manager in Sofia, Bulgaria. The manuscript of his debut poetry book is completed and will be published in the spring of 2026. His works have been published in the cultural magazine Bulgarian Artist (Summer issue No. 5, 2025).