A Duwamish man told the story

to my daughter at a school assembly.

He drummed in a world

of children who walk into the water

and who return as Salmon

for the villagers to eat.

Now she worries beyond reason

for the Salmon boys and Salmon girls —

the ones who will not walk again

should the drying bones of last night’s dinner

not be returned to sea.

Always the ocean down our street

keeps up its chop and spit and rush

and I pay bills, sack lunches, wash clothes

in cycles spinning my hand-me-down story,

the one I will not give her.

She plucks each bone of a stolen story

from the dish in her hands

and feeds them to the waves that slosh

against her legs like underpinnings

of a miles-long pier.


Katy E. Ellis is our Poet in Residence for June.

Previously: All Signs are Dares.