Over the edge of the cannery
dock, processed fish
innards are dumped daily—
lure for prowling scavengers
in Resurrection Bay.
My pole arcs, its tip pointing
to pilings below. I heave
and reel until a briny creature
breaks the surface. I grab
the grotesque head,
its mouth flashing needles.
It coils my left arm. Grip tightens.
I forget to breathe,
barely manage to scream for […]
Near our trailer park home
I explore the meander
of a narrow stream.
Dark gurgle
discloses a mortal
struggle. I grab
the slimy tail,
flop it to the bank,
drag it home.
Proud.
It’s nothing
but a spawning salmon
full of
worms.
Once again
to my mother’s husband,
I do not measure up,
will never be
a fisher-
man.
Seward, Alaska, 1952
My first paper job
was mostly to please my stepfather,
who’d match the five cents I made
from each paper. I was 10, would run
to hawk in early Saturday morning bars,
where old Alaskans drank, many of them lacking
parts of frostbitten noses or ears.
Once, my customers toasted my innocence
to spice resolution of a bar dispute. Did the […]
My mother’s new husband, Dick,
decided it would be embarrassing
for me to have a different last name
when we moved to this small Alaskan town.
But now Lincoln Trigg and Larcie Mathieson
older native kids whose folks were in the nearby
TB sanitarium, pulp my shoulders with their fists,
outraged by my Tennessee accent
and mercilessly taunt me
about my new
name.
Seward, 1952
Once my mother’s husband
made me cut off the head
of a chicken.
This was another effort
to make me into something
we each sensed I was not,
a man.
I clutched the chicken
by its horny feet,
extending its neck
over wood block.
Two hatchet blows necessary
to sever head strings and bones.
Then one leg sprang free
and the chicken twirled ‘round,
a wing flapping phantasm,
spraying blood and […]
