1. Field’s sawmill
A burial site with ghost bodies
on platforms in trees
retaining walls at the river’s edge
log booms float in the memory water
past Hollyhock Marsh upriver to the mill
in the lumber yard forklifts front end loaders
Ross and Marty on the green chain yellow cedar 4 x 4s
Love it or hate it concedes the waitress at The Old House
Monte Cristo above the ambient bandsaw
whose bite and zing carries across the river
downstream bones in the midden
winged chevron of fish traps
storied tumble of salmon
estuary the tidal mouth of a large river
mud mouth salt chew
2. We the marsh
Lost fish we
heart and flank the watershed
pave and unpave paradise dismantle
the wall install it in a Ken Gerberick forest
with old cars rust and moss we oil and eagle
hawk and plover crab and flounder loon and grebe
we other the marsh
picked off by seals at the killing wall salmon
diminish the mill closes but
salt marsh fills in toxins in the surface clay
orphans of the living sediment we face the stars
water eyed hunger for the cold sea
to toss and return the story
begin again
with Pacific cinquefoil tufted hairgrass
herring roe in the eel grass camas and shooting stars
begin again with a village and a name
“Kus-kus-sum” is reprinted from Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds (2020), with permission from the publisher, Caitlin Press.
