Poem: For Salvador

Published 10:30 pm Wednesday, April 2, 2014

For Salvador

By Byron Nalos, Nikiski

pulling anchors from the sea

and squinting in Susitna’s breeze,

anchorlines ten fathoms long

snagged and gilled Leviathan,

snagged in mud, or even more

a pail of iron from the core

like drawing buckets from a well,

the leadlines over the leeward rails,

pulling them north by northeast,

the brackish mist, the brackish mist,

the roar along the aluminum rim

like horsetails on a cello string,

a siren’s song that begins

and ends upon the metal rim —

pulling anchors from the sea

the brackish drink, the brackish drink,

the memory tho sweet and sour

mixed with doctrines and desire

mixes even, knowingly,

that somehow, somewhere,

you and I are fishing

freshwater.