Part of me is sleeping by the Columbia River - by Veronica Habashy

Part of me is sleeping by the Columbia River

by Veronica Habashy

The rest of me wilts. I have been creased open, only seeing salmon, a glittering run, migrating up a falling ladder, and the vulgar way they climb.

I know that despite this the others are fighting in the next room.

Are screaming and

Nobody is standing to worry for the salmon like I do.

(When will they learn the sacrifice of weariness?)

They only think how:

to win

and:

to hurt but they are not even thinking of

Hurt. Only themselves.

The selfishness of victory never needs to be taught.

What if:

silver and meek and blessed, the fish cannot make it back home?

And:

the porch light was left on, the key rusting beneath the mat and the worry growing stale beneath a single living room lamp?

Sometimes I feel that we have chosen to fear the wrong things.

How does the apple’s bruising make it sweeter? Some thanks for the gift of kind fruit.

The ladder seems

Difficult and it’s getting

Cold. What then?

Who then

to inherit the earth?

Don’t we all deserve to draw a sigh of relief at one time or another?

Some pyrrhic victory.

I claw before me for noise, for water, weight. I am starving for a heaviness I have never known.

Only finding the flailing body.

Rushing river.

Force of the fractured pink flesh–

Marred by the jagged northward rocks–

I know that it’ll be sweeter once we get to it.

Once it is all over.

The rest of me wilts.