Salmon Run by Johanna MayAfter five or six years
they swim up river
belly full of roe.
To their own birth water,
dying as their mothers did
after delivering them
to a possible caviar fate
A funereal birthdayness.
Nets are waiting
for the litmus change in skin;
death’s brink
makes them a pretty pink.
August swam inside my sister; a fish
for nine months.
And like the primordial riddle
exchanged fins for legs.
He will crawl and walk upright,
crawl again ‘pon reaching
the dusk of his run. 01/07/2013 Posted on 01/07/2013 Copyright © 2024 Johanna May
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