Water-Toothed, My Brother Slips Into A Stream
Salmon go home to die
I saw you there, in the stream
You were so young there,
Fish rotting on the riverbank
Meadow-child
Three-trickster-ravens
Picking out the maggots
Their eggs,
You stepped around them so carefully,
Like separating salt from water
Skin from blood
The living dead,
swam all around you
red-backed
and hook-jawed
but you didn’t seem to care
And you are destined to die in the place of your birth
Because this is the place that made you ugly
And this is the place that made you angry
And this is the place that made you soft
And the salmon will always be there to rot.
5
4
1