J64




Oh swimmers
come back to us,
oh salmon people
altered by purity
of purpose, altered
by love and by lust
your flanks burning
red with desire
and with divinity,
your noses oh men
of the sea hooked
like the hawk’s beak,
scrambling in a drought year
through shallows, wriggling
walking almost, running legless
over the stones, waiting
for rain in the shadow
of tree shaded pools.

Oh swimmers
oh lovers
of the long way.


From COHO by Michael Whitt