late spring wind sounds an ocean 
through new leaves. later the same 
wind sounds a tide. later still the dry 

sound of applause: leaves chapped 
falling, an ending. this is a process.
the ocean leaping out of ocean 

should be enough. the wind 
pushing the water out of itself;
the water catching the light

should be enough. I think this 
on the deck of one boat
then another. I think this 

in the Salish, thought it in Stellwagen
in the Pacific. the water leaping 
looks animal, looks open mouthed,

looks toothed and rolling;
the ocean an animal full 
of other animals.

what I am looking for doesn’t matter.
that I am looking doesn’t matter.
I exert no meaning.

a juvenile bald eagle eats 
a harbor seal’s placenta.
its head still brown. 

this is a process. the land 
jutting out, seals hauled out,
the white-headed eagles lurking 

ready to take their turn at what’s left.
the lone sea otter on its back,
toes flopped forward and curled;

Friday Harbor: the phone booth
the ghost snare of a gray whale’s call; 
an orca’s tooth in an orca’s skull

mounted inside the glass box. 
remains. this is a process. 
three river otters, two adults, a pup, 

roll like logs parallel to the shore. 
two doe, three fawns. a young buck 
stares, its antlers new, limned gold 

in sunset. then the wind again: 
a wave through leaves green 
with deep summer, the walnut’s 

green husk. we are alive in a green 
crashing world. soon winter. 
the boat forgotten. the oceans,

their leaping animal light, off screen.
past. future. this is a process. the eagles 
at the river’s edge cluster 

in the bare tree. they steal fish 
from ducks. they eat the hunter’s 
discards: offal and lead. the juveniles 

practice fighting, their feet tangle 
midair before loosing. this 
is a process. where they came from. 

for how long will they stay. 
that I am looking doesn’t matter. 
I will impose no meaning.

i stand before you to say 
that today i walked home
& caught the light through
the fence & it was so golden
i wanted to cry & i lifted 
my right hand to say thank
you god for the sun thank 
you god for a chain link fence
& all the shoes that fit into
the chain link fence so that
we might get lifted god thank
you & i just wanted to dance
& it feels good to have food
in your belly & it feels good
to be home even when home
is the space between metal
shapes & still we are golden
& a man who wore the walk
of hard grounds & lost days
came toward me in the street
& said ‘girl what a beautiful 
day’ & i said yes, testify
& i walked on & from some
place a horn rose, an organ,
a voice, a chorus, here to tell
you that we are not dead
we are not dead we are not
dead we are not dead we are
not dead we are not dead 
we are not dead we are not
dead 
yet

We’d lift gin from your mother’s cabinet  
and walk the hallways of Robert Asp Middle  
taking swigs in plain sight from a 20 oz  
Pepsi Clear, your gap tooth flashing  
at teachers we passed, your hands forgetting  
to pass the bottle, screwing and unscrewing  
the cap. After that I moved. We lost track.  
The news was six months old by the time  
I heard. When they don’t say what happened  
you know what happened. We used to catch  
rides from highschoolers out to the Red to jump  
the bridge. Water thick with clay. Red with clay.  
We kept close watch for underwater logs.  
Smoked Menthols. A 40-foot drop into swirls  
of currents. One time you stayed under  
and kicked downstream to trick me. Nervous,  
I stared at the surface for signs. No signs.  
I stumbled down the bank to dive in.  
The moment you were certain you had me  
the valley cracked with your laughter.

^{(Inventory, 1950–present)}

We were the dream of convenience, the permanent press. 
We were the yogurt cup you spooned empty at dawn, 
the blister-pack popped for a single white pill, 
the slick, sterile innards of the IV that saved you.

We were the unbreakable toy in the 1962 sandbox, 
the fleece that wicked your first marathon sweat, 
the photo-bright banner that welcomed you home from a war 
you only understood through our lens.

We are the hangover of that dream. 
We are the lint in your deepest lung pocket, 
the bright shard in the albatross’s gullet, 
the glint in your daughter’s first meconium.

We are the polymer of your placenta’s print, 
the slow, milky bead in your grandfather’s cataract lens 
through which he sees a world softening at the edges.

We do not arrive as invasion. 
We are issued at conception, 
like a social-security number, 
like a name you cannot change.

We perform the trophic math: 
krill eats colorful flake, 
salmon eats krill, 
you eat salmon, 
we pay compound dividends in your marrow fat.

Our half-life is a new form of forever. 
Every birthday candle is a small, bright flare 
against the petrochemical balance sheet 
you carry inside your own body.

We are the derivative that never degrades, 
the toxic asset sliced thinner than sunlight, 
securitized and repackaged 
until the valuation is your own vasculature.

Your 1950-cutoff is a fairy tale. 
We were waiting in the womb’s warm lobby to disprove.

We are the call coming from inside the house.

We are the house.

We are the mortar in its very cells, 
the silent, synthetic hinge 
on which your own heart swings.

We are the heirloom you did not ask for, 
the inheritance that cannot be refused, 
the future fossil of your present, 
already here.

Nowhere did they charge: Guilty of ____. Me? I’m pacing the living room, full-throated and the men on screen are men. I will not compare a man to a soft-feathered bird, but have you read Eli Cranor’s Broiler? If we can agree that caging a flock without room to stretch their wings is inhumane, are we not obligated to pluck a senator’s phone number from the annals of the internet? I don’t know these men. I don’t know these men, but spittle flies from my lower teeth as I pace and shout. Maybe the beaded black eyes of birds is nothing to no one. Maybe that’s a double negative for a reason. Maybe subject and verb disagree for a reason. Where was I when no one offered due process? Brooding, probably. About money or the broken left-front burner on the stovetop. The worn-through soles of my Chuck Taylors. Nowhere did they chant USA as they bent the men in half. Imagine: being one of these half-bent men. Nowhere did they say, explicitly, run little birds, run. I’m making sense of why, when Kilmar Jr. looks in the mirror, he sees white tube socks scurrying a cement floor. A boy’s hand. Fingers weaving between bars. A whisper: Fly little flightless bird. When they plucked these men, did I—no-one’s mother—wretch? Nowhere is a person free when men cage other men. Nowhere is America. Nowhere. Maybe a gap between a boy’s baby teeth. Maybe a legion of milkless mothers. A lit match. An unbolted cage.

I can tell you that some things vanish
without ceremony—a town can lose its name
and keep the post office, or keep the name

and lose the rest. There still marks a point
on the map where it began, but the work’s long done;
the road grown over with bleeding hearts and alder.

You can walk there. The gravel crunches 
under the phantom buzz of chainsaws, and fog
licks at the gridded hillside like an old debt.

Each stump is a headstone,
a biography in every ring. You think you see
a form in the mist—a thrashing elk, or a bobcat

or the shape of work that once
held the valley upright. Every road here
leads to another road that stops

at a locked gate, a washout,
a view of nothing but cloud.
Acceptance lives somewhere past that.

They say the forest heals, some say faster
than the heart—Scotch broom,
thistle, the thin gray line of runoff

that feeds the river in winter.
If there’s holiness in this, it’s in the rot,
the glacial comeback of what was taken.

Once I dreamed the salmon spoke
in a tongue I almost understood—
a language of loss, but also return.

They swam upstream through
clear-cuts and culverts, their bodies bright
as stripped wire, and I woke thinking

maybe the land dreams us too,
and stirs awake each time we leave
another scar across its ribs.

Docks rust and rot beside the river,
the paper mill sighing its white smoke
like a ghost rehearsing its final exit.

On the coast: blown glass, fish smells
and salt wind—the gulls screaming
for everything we drop.

Sometimes I go there just to see
where the road gives out at the jetty,
where the land admits defeat. Or victory.

No revelation, only the dull
thought that everything moves
toward water, then into it.

I’m somewhere inland still,
standing in the rain, or threat of it,
watching a fern push through the asphalt.

The sky        as always         undecided 
gray, opening, closing—
slack mouth of forgiveness, of apology.