Pratt's poem watches a whale with a mix of delight and humility. The opening line piles up the names of whale behaviors, logging, spy-hopping, bubble-netting, as if the speaker is trying to catch the animal in words. Then come close, almost tender details: the flippers waving, the breath clouding over the bay, the humped back, the flukes lifting like feet. The speaker also admits what can't be known. The whale's hungers and "mysterious love affairs" stay out of reach, and it sings "where we cannot go."
The single line "You must be awake to breathe" is startling and quiet. It points to how different this creature's life is from ours. Then the poem turns. The whale is now a carcass on a stony beach, reduced to baleen, skull and skin. The mood shifts from awe to a hushed, respectful sadness, though the speaker still looks at the body with wonder, noticing its "long purple leather."