March 27*

grilled the last fish in the freezer
august sockeye from legoe bay

rose pink flesh full of oil —
fuel for the long journey never made

i carry the carcass down
return it to the sea                     where

it will travel to crabs, gulls, dogfish,
and the tiniest of critters, plankton,

and, eventually, other sockeye.
passing through, into.           becoming.

just like us.
just like it has always been.

*Copyright 2010 by Luther Allen. This poem appears in The View from Lummi Island.
. . . . .
sockeye salmon photo