Silt muscles out the fish, gold tongues of mica
burn between gills. It’s because
of flooding. It’s because the schools
needed money for books so the county
let logging roar into the hills. Because
men need jobs. Our family used to eat salmon
every Thanksgiving, our plates alive with sky—
pink orange, peppered meat coating our throats.
One year, when homeless Joe
stayed for dinner, he couldn’t stop exclaiming
My god this Chinook is good, so good! My father
had known him for years, and Joe had nowhere
else to go. As he ate his eyes
were billowed and brown, jaw open
to what might float in. Freckles.
But mostly I recall the hands, big-wind hands,
story-telling hands, their waving like fins
treading water.
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