Читать книгу Long after Lauds - Jeanine Hathaway - Страница 6

Hacked and sliced, a pile of salmon halves

rots in the parking lot at the river’s mouth.

Orange and silver dinner for crows, part

installation, the Coho stare into tires, truck

bumpers. I stare into them: their bones

fallen combs, tails feathery, curling to

clumps. Flies swarm; the buzz is glued

to the asphalt. Not swimming, no flop or

fight—the meat’s gone out of the argument.

I shovel them back into the river.

Let whitewater tear them apart. Make private

the shame of this flaying, pick them clean,

inarticulate. A spiny silence lies below a hook.

Let even their bones be as useful as prayer,

those fine lines that some would call the catch.