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.

Susan Terris’ most recent books are Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk Press) and Memos (Omnidawn). She is the author of six poetry books, fifteen chapbooks, and three artist’s books.  Journal publications include The Southern Review, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers from Field appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI.  She’s editor of Spillway Magazine. A poem from Memos appears in Best American Poetry 2015. Her next book Take Two: Film Studies will be published by Omnidawn in 2017. www.susanterris.com