Sockeye Dream

​Salt water swimmer with freshwater memory,
years spent displaced but yearning,let me follow you. I, too, remember upstream,
its pine-dusted air and scent. When you lookfor that place which you, as a sleek fry, called
home—take me along. I, too, need to

thrash past fern, over current-smoothed rock,
struggle toward a pinked dream-spot.

As I travel with you, broad river to stream to
inlet to pool, your quicksilver tail will be

my beacon. And I, too, will think love,
think home, home—instead of only death.