The Relations Project

Old currents, a long muscle on the surface visible from the bridge. Riptide, sidewalk. The ex river runs a route dug out by belly not shovel. Gutterpath, Marine Drive. At the mouth of the ex river, where it empties into the ocean, there is a gate installed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, guarded by your first lover, dressed in her moleskin shirt from that period, tied at her waist with a length of your hair, she opens her white mouth and says “---------------------------------------.” Memoryflow, riverbed. The ex river slips through fingers. Among flesh. Remembrance of path. Do not try to take care of the river, take care of what is around the river and the river will take care of itself, stopper, overthroat. An engineer has been here and you can tell from the straight lines. You can walk its bank now, a building or large dog lumbering past, nearby breathing, the heat of new things. You are one of the species that came from the ex river. Logic crawls too, green fins, casual steps and can breathe under pavement. You are as good a candidate as any for drowning. 

not missing

...I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters burst each successive dam   downriver from the Grand Coulee. I am told by many of you   that I must forgive and so I shall after the floodwaters find   their way to the mouth of the Columbia River as it enters the Pacific   and causes all of it to rise. I am told by many of you that I must forgive   and so I shall after the first drop of floodwater is swallowed by that salmon   waiting in the Pacific. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall  after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia   and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors   of Hanford. I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   after that salmon swims through the mouth of the Spokane River   as it meets the Columbia, then upstream, until it arrives   in the shallows of a secret bay on the reservation where I wait alone.   I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall after   that salmon leaps into the night air above the water, throws   a lightning bolt at the brush near my feet, and starts the fire   which will lead all of the lost Indians home. I am told   by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon   who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: one story will teach us   how to pray; another story will make us laugh for hours;   the third story will give us reason to dance. I am told by many   of you that I must forgive and so I shall when I am dancing   with my tribe during the powwow at the end of the world.