Selected Poems

The Spell

Only at two, three, four
in the morning
is it finally quiet,
the hour of the bear.
There is still a little
light on the river
though I look through many opacities:
of mist, of dust on the panes,
of mucus
my eyes collected in sleep.

I have come here
by the window,
shuddering slightly
and holding my breasts,
to cast a spell
I promised myself
in a fanciful moment.

I know now,
having woken
and climbed away from you
in the chill
that I can do it.
Cast a spell
on my body.

Swim, sperm, swim
my vagina is a dark river,
my womb a quiet lake,
my oviducts branching streams
to bring you home.

Wrapped in shadow,
I am joined
by all the poster goddesses
in these barracks rooms,
their pubic mounds
covered with G-strings
patterned like nets;
huge, motherly breasts
offered in their hands like fruit
or straining against wet shirts
as they rise out of the surf.
I imagine their bellies
growing overnight,
such that by morning
the swell is marked
by silvery scales,
and they hold not their breasts
but that taut skin,
rubbing it absently
as pregnant women will.

Old Mekoryuk hunter, primal raven,
husband, whoever is listening:

May our children
be as determined
as the salmon and
as clever as the evolution
that shaped them,
and may they have moments still
to be only beautiful.

The Woman Who Counted Salmon

When I went to the dock yesterday,
the sun was shining with an intensity
I knew was partly my mood.
I was glad for everything,
even the eye of a salmon
popped out somehow,
just lying there on the boards.

And the woman with blond hair
who came up to talk to me—
yes, her especially.

I’ve forgotten how we got on
the subject of counting salmon
though I recall the details
of her cancer,
how it had marbled
her femaleness like blue cheese
and the whole mess
had to be pitched out
like a bad apple.

She’d worked for Alaska Fish and Game,
sitting in a tower above the river,
where a carpet of white plastic
had been rolled
across the bottom
so the salmon would stand out better.
She had a hand clicker,
and that was the only sound
sometimes at night—
click, click, click—
the beam of a spotlight
focused on the water
like a cord
pulsing between them.
I found myself
going down to the bank
on my hands and knees
to watch them,
swimming and dying at the same time,
pieces of skin falling away,
and I’d . . .

She couldn’t hide
the sudden, luminous
shine in her eyes.
I didn’t turn away.

Don’t Be Afraid

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game
has closed the river today.
The subsistence nets remain
staked along the beach,
but the cloudy, broad, cold
body of the bay
is quiet,
and the Vigilant patrols the
boats at anchor.

There was a time when salmon spawned
in every river in the north,
feeding Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon,
and pilgrim in turn;
when they were so plentiful
the churls fed them to swine;
when they caused the river
to spill its banks and overturned
small boats.

It took the death of the runs
on the Charles, Merrimack,
Columbia, Connecticut, and more—
and their near destruction here—
to teach us temperance.

Now the Japanese agree
to quotas on the high sea,
and we let a certain number
through to spawn. Still,
ARCO wants to drill for oil
off the Aleutian chain,
Canada wants to build more dams,
and some talk now
of salmon farmers here, too,
saying runs are inefficient.
Look at the waste!

A man wearing a cap
that says Quality Control
assures me this harvest
is good for the genus.
If too many fish pass upstream,
they run out of room
and dig up each other’s redds.

What can I possibly say?
Some die so that others can live,
only the strong survive,
we are damned or redeemed collectively,
we learn from our mistakes,
don’t we?

Sometimes in the night I dream
of a silver raven
lifting into the sky
from the air base at King Salmon,
destroying his creation
as he did the first stone man.
I see an evil mist,
a terrible coldness,
the darkness borne in his beak,
and I wake and want to live.

And if I can’t sleep at night,
I whisper a lilting, lying lullaby
that has no end and no beginning,
that is supple and can hold anything,
that is better than sleeplessness and pain:

Don’t be afraid,
the fishermen are gone,
the boats are in dry dock,
the roe lies undisturbed.
Don’t be afraid,
the fish house is empty and locked,
the villagers’ salmon is smoked,
the nets are rolled up in the sheds.
Don’t be afraid,
my baby is starting to kick,
the pinups are clothed in the dark,
the Yupik are back in Kipnuk.
Don’t be afraid,
the bloaters, the ghostfish,
are nothing but bones in the sea wrack,
the river is freezing,
the bears are fat.
Don’t be afraid,
the F-15s are in their hangars,
the officers are dancing at the club,
the Russians are having tea and jam.
Don’t be afraid,
the salmon are learning to sing
out in the ocean now,
they’re humming like the rims
of crystal wineglasses,
and when they swim back again
they’ll sing themselves out of the nets,
they’ll sing the fishermen to weeping,
sing the pilots into trances,
sing God awake,
sing me asleep.
Don’t be afraid.