POINT DEFIANCE
 

When I visit her, I find

a sea widow scanning the bay,

hair of braided epiphytes

askew, the blast of wind

across the bay

her keening.

Footpaths cross her heart:

ligatures suture

rags of tissue, strain

against arrhythmia.

In her secret embrasure

anomalous snow convenes,

fistfuls of confetti, forgotten

or illswept.  Here

breathing calms.

A tree stump older

than the steam engine

strikes, for a second, sunlight

in its mossy hollow.  Where rot

succeeds to loam, a splintered branch

of windfall jabs.

Flagless pole, it quivers,

marking a coordinate

which now mostly bores.

ASARCO’s airborne plume

casts a century’s tumorous shadow

—copper cadmium arsenic—

from Ruston’s clavicle to Vashon’s chin.

More than we, the Greeks understood

a poison that might linger,

but here no Machaon will salve

Philoktetes’ festering wound.
 

Orcas passing through the bay,

half your heroes gone,

circle widely, when the seas

diminish, emulate

the octopus, whose

arms grasp the Narrows bridge:

seek out the secret places.

Leaning back, I descend

a driftwood colossus,

wavetorn taproots flailing —

how long they served, how hard

to relinquish one’s defense.

The tang of ocean drops

frozen from the air.

On sand, I turn and see the giant,

angled toward the sea, now

unremarkable; dozens

so fashioned test water. And I

cannot decide if they are winter sunbathers

or skiffs readying themselves for the sea.

        Copyright © 2006 by William Kupinse