Smelt
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To the palms of my hands
I press the heels of your feet,
And the salts sealing
The recognition flesh gives to flesh rise
Like shades of blue from nettles’
Stems, the colors awakening
In the sun in spring before
The nettles ever really bloom,
On mornings after breakfast
When for the night we save the paper
As a wrapper for heads,
The clean offal of rainbow smelt
Which rock and swirl
And sweep against the current
Of Swede Creek, smelt
Massing in the stream that rings
In their bones, the spawn-ripe
Swollen females, the males ripe
With milt. We lean against
The spill-off of hills
To feel smelt snap against our
Waders. We set the net
To fill our buckets
With silver fish;
And for hours, sitting together
At the kitchen table, cleaning smelt,
Building towers of entrails,
Of faces with blackbird-
Eyes, and sacs of yellow eggs,
I watch you splitting
The bellies, pushing your thumb
Against the guts, hard
Against the backbones, through the aviaries
Where the hearts beat as the fresh
Cucumber smell of smelt
Inks our fingers, as the fore-
Glowing of day reddens
The trees, and I taste on my hands
The memory of shadows of smelt
And kiss you as always,
The sense sour and delicious.