Evening

Whoops and hollers
Torn from tongue
Were gale flung
Back toward the village

If only soiled laundry
Stained of my poor choices
Whipped from
My clothesline of memories

Homeland of Makah
At nation’s far point
Upon that final ****** of stone
We stood atop its
Plunge into sea

Twilight gripped like
Prayer shawls
We could not hold back
Moon nor stars

Home with wind East
Shabby trailers
Stapled to the earth
Chained dogs
Feral felines
Hulks of auto
Appliances abandoned to rust

East toward the dawn
Sunrise and tide
Westward rolling
Sands swarmed with
Seekers
Out of last of night’s
Shadows seeking treasure
Even a glass Japan net float


Noon

In left hand
The map sketched on
Paper torn from
A patient’s chart

With right
I swung pack over shoulder

A cove held secret
By nailed drift and
Rusted anchor chain
We descended

In high sun
On sands, on blanket spread
In the wind hiss of surf
Naked both
Nancy taught me
Arts of love
I tongued her to screams

Night

The moon
Pulled flame into the sky
The hiss and spit
Of burning cedar
Stars!

With radar and chart
Ships cut the night
To round the point
Into the straight
Tacoma, Seattle still hours off
Firelight said a pilot

Lit with lantern
Our shapes writhed and moaned
Upon the thin tent walls
Only a raccoon to see

I slept the dream of Orca
Half brain
Still upon her skin
Her lips

Toward the morn
I slept the dream of Orca