Migration

First published in Solitary Plover #37, Spring 2023, page 11, except for “Issaquah sunrise,” which was first published in I Sing the Salmon Home (Chimacum, Washington: Empty Bowl Press, 2023, page 79), a Washington state poetry anthology edited by state poet laureate Rena Priest. Sequence originally written in August and September of 2022.



fish ladder—

fingerprints on the glass

at child height

 

 

early salmon migration—

an empty vase

in the summer house

 

 

salmon bake—

the vegetarian

sipping water

 

 

a salmon carcass

under the log bridge—

drifting leaves

 

 

salmon migration—

a Beethoven tune

comes to mind

 

 

Issaquah sunrise—

what’s left of a salmon

reddening the creek

 

 

somewhere upstream

where I’ve never been

salmon spawning