I laugh at their games: those
who trap my tale in words.
When the brittle pages open
voices appeal from them:
the villagers chorusing: Woman-out-to-sea,
do not harm our relative!
Oh, give over. So what if I destroy
all men who court me? Why not,
for wherever I go there are more men.
It’s like they want to be eaten.
One kindly editor notes: vagina dentata
theme omitted here. Thanks. I appreciate that.
I appreciate, too, that my transformation
is described so simply:
until the best friend of the salmon prince
takes her to wife, and subdues her.
But I’m not so fond of the editor’s final dig:
vagina dentata thwarted by love.
Thwarted, ha! I was undone,
every cell of my body broken
to atoms, then rebuilt, remade,
put together whole and wholly different.
Her powers lost, she’s now
eager for him, for life with him.
So now I’ve changed. From cliché to cliché.
That’s some magic. And true.
But only launches the tale.
Here is part two:
I and my new husband, now we,
take a blackfish canoe to visit my father—
and passing my husband’s friend’s villages,
the salmon people shout warnings.
Listen to the salmon shout. Though I tell my father
this man’s a keeper, he has his own plans:
asks my love for sea-urchins, seal meat,
the octopus, but my love, so clever
captures them all, so father
lets him take an abundance home, our home.
So far so good. Deep breath.
But this is part three:
everyday my husband draws water
for me to drink; I test it with a plume.
But one day he meets a woman
at the water hole and takes her
before coming home to me.
When I test it, I know I must
return to my father. Goddam
this wronged woman cliché!
Though he follows, begging,
twice I warn him: if you do not
go back, I will look back
and you shall perish.
Don’t turn me to Orpheus,
you bastard. I cannot sing.
He takes no heed, so I look back:
he sinks into the sea.
The end? No, no but at least
be patient—part four is the last:
In my father’s house I am
cliché again, tears and all.
I love him. I want him back.
I am so tired of the ends of men.
Father fishes up my husband’s bones,
reassembles, then covers them,
jumps over them three times
and they start to move.
Uncovers them. My husband
awakens. When I see him
come back to life, I stop crying.
I take him to my sleeping place, forgiven.
This is the end.
Or:
we can’t find his shin bone
and so we use that of an eagle,
giving all people now their slender
bird-boned shins. Still, I take him back.
Ksampguiyaeps, I have
cleverly re-made him as he only remade me.
Oh, it’s love.
Close the book now.