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Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale
They think that if she waded in a stream or lake, the fish would die.
The whale was known as right because it was
magnificent with oil, slow and easy
 
to find and slaughter, floating even when dead.
But after it was no longer needed for fat,
 
men still hunted the whale for its rich mouth
of baleen, harvested for hairbrushes,
 
buggy whips, umbrella ribs, the stays
of corsets – vain things designed to mold the female
 
body, sculpt a waist so small a man's
hands could meet with ease around it. Crazy,
 
the girls agree, the way those women bought it.

Editor's Note: ‘Environmental Awareness: The Right Whale’, ‘What They Are Missing’, ‘Physical Education’ and ‘Reunion Weekend’ are from a sequence entitled ‘All Girls School’. The epigraphs are from the chapter ‘The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty’ in The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion by Sir George Frazer.