Ravenna Creek, Seattle

Oh, Ravenna,
you sleep under steel and concrete, you glimpse the sky
through prison bars, and in your lap
they’ve laid a pile of seeds that will not sprout. Ghosts of salmon
swim uphill, under sidewalks, pass through cast-iron and brick
to lay their phantom eggs at Ravenna’s root. Eggs that will not hatch.

Last service to a river, concrete-caged:
letters stamped in stone, her name
an epitaph above unquiet sleep. Rain drips
through grates like graveyard tears. Still, somewhere downstream,
Ravenna finds the sea.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside