I walk down the pier,
All sea-salt dreams and hand-spun darkness
The buildings are bent from the wind
As are the people inside them
But it is voluntary,
So they still appear strong.
A man sits on a corner
Wearing only his clothes and half-moon smile
I think he must have been born
Before the flood took Kwakwaka’s voice
And thunderbirds were more than midnight cries
Of feathered laughter on the Chinook
I think he must know that for which I search
He calls me over to his barnacle throne
And says in a black-bear voice
“If its fish you want,
Be here before the rain
That comes on the heels of daybreak
And buy from the man with the golden tooth,
His fish are good
And his hands honest.”
That night I dream of lighthouses
And the way the stairs wind like a promise
Out of the toss and turn of the night
And the way they hold boats and the men inside them
All those tangled strings
In a fist of yellow light
And the way that light becomes a phoenix
To those who choose to give the land a second chance
Or a third, when the sea proves more fickle a friend
Than the women who have given up hope
Of being more a lover and less a lion
Than the blue-dress lady with a red-dress song.
At daybreak there is a black bear at a fish stand
His arms are laden with bodies like silver coins
I know he does not fish for wealth
Besides that of the wisdom brought
By knowing your home and purpose.
I think he must know that for which I search
He calls me over
And says in an old-man voice,
“If its love you want,
Be here before the sun
That comes on the heels of the breaking tide
And watch the one true glory of the earth
Give birth once again to forgiveness.”
I believed what he said because I could still see
The sunrise reflected in his eyes
Like a prayer.
At dawn there are two figures on the horizon,
Hand in hand,
Brothers maybe,
They jump into the breathing chaos
Of the still-dark waves
And become the fish that beat in their mother’s chest
Become her heart and her blood,
Her veins and
Her children