<\/p>\n
Launching the Whale<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My dad is a carpenter, sort of like Jesus,
\nbut he doesn\u2019t believe in God.<\/p>\n
His holy space is drills and grinders,
\nroaring teeth spitting chips and dust.<\/p>\n
When I was twelve we built a canoe
\nfrom strips of cedar, ripped boards for weeks.<\/p>\n
The frame in the garage was scaled like an empty whale,
\nbones lurching from the shop floor.
\nWe arced on its new skin with glue and heavy staples.<\/p>\n
Dad wore a green down-vest like a tortoise shell,
\nhe said it would comfort our shop-mammal
\nto be built by something familiar.<\/p>\n
As the frame was full with hull and keel,
\nwe plied out staples like final stitches
\nremoved from a recovered experiment,
\nran our hands down its sanded spine,
\nthe work painting into our palms,
\nour pores absorbing the bonding.<\/p>\n
When we rode the whale, we launched it from the shore
\nlike pushing a dead cow back into the sea, boots in the shallows
\nfilled with lake water.<\/p>\n
It would take us to the middle where the big fish are,
\nwhere the casting rods bend like cottonwood over glass,
\ndance jigs, whippin\u2019 back and forth. Dragon tongues.<\/p>\n
This is how we sit, me, navigator bow-boy,
\nfront paddle like the steam engine is tug boat, but little boat.
\nDad is stern, rudder man, power in the deep dig,
\nhe spanked the water good,
\nlike it forgot to take the garbage out.<\/p>\n
We pull the trash from the beaver dens
\nand replace them with good sticks,
\nhe says they don\u2019t know any better, the babies
\nwill get the soda rings around their heads
\nlike the Spanish inquisition and die slow.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t want um to die slow.
\n\u201cKeep rowing, hard on the left, watch out for the log!\u201d<\/p>\n
I see the log. The log looks like a floating dog.
\nPut my paddle in it, sank through like a fork in cat food.
\nIt is\/was a dog, belly stickin\u2019 out like helium and rot.<\/p>\n
See how the K9\u2019s are chipped and peeled back?
\nMusta\u2019 been eatin\u2019 marmots.
\nSometimes a stray dog will eat rocks
\nif it\u2019s hungry enough.<\/p>\n
My dad is a scientist. He doesn\u2019t believe in god.
\nHis holy space is lakes and bug guts,
\nthey cell through him when we walk on the roots
\nand slipping path of the Yakima valley.<\/p>\n
We Swiss-blade open the on pond, make ripples like loons,
\nhoot-hoot against the quarry for the echo.
\nMake campfire dance with pucker-mouth lip wind
\nand sizzle up the iron-pan washin\u2019 in mountain water.<\/p>\n
When the tent gots the squirts with dew
\nand the embers burn down crackin\u2019
\nlike mosquitoes on Dad\u2019s neck
\nwith his slappin\u2019, and it\u2019s dark as bears,
\nmorning peeps over the ridge
\nand we are simple
\nheirloom pocketknives,
\ncarving memory into the tree.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n