from Old Wounds, New Words: Poems from the Appalachian Poetry Project (1994)
I had read in National Geographic
how in Alaska, or some places like it
where chill mysteries winter,
people stand on ice ten months thick
and see fish glint far beneath
shivering the deep green with their speed.
I stood on creek ice
one windfall of a subzero day
skating thin and bladeless
on a dare. Dreaming of parkas,
the huskies’ bark, a fish-hook gleaming
carved from a fat walrus tusk,
I saw only the bent brown ribs
of the old year's reeds
like a kayak skeleton
breaking up in the backwater.
Whatever I saw or didn't in the mud,
come spring and full summer
the creek overflowed
with tadpoles, snapping-turtles, water-bugs,
the green wink of a lizard disappearing.
I kept one eye peeled
in hopes of cottonmouth, water-moccasin
as I kneeled in the weeds, sleeve hiked,
feeling in water brown as tobacco
for the least thrill of minnows
shimmering between my fingers.