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Age of Parallax

Vivian Faith Prescott

 
The muddy tide rising to shore
should carry you downriver by now.
But, I imagine your scow wedged

between cottonwoods on the riverbank
branches shoved through your chest
motor revving. Maybe your skiff
                                                     
is jammed on the sandbar, and you’ve
stumbled over the side, whirlpools
sucking your rubber-booted feet.

But here, beyond this same window,
the same slack tide, I see your staggered
walk up the boat ramp, river sand

in your hair, mud-coated boots, and this
current ebbs, spinning about my head
a course much smoother when you were

face down in your orange flotation suit
frozen atop an ice floe like an abandoned buoy.
 
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Vivian Faith Prescott is a fifth generation Alaskan. She holds a Ph.D. in Cross Cultural Studies and an MFA from the University of Alaska. She's the Co-Director of Raven's Blanket. Her poetry appears in Catapult to Mars, Yellow Medicine Review and Gutter Eloquence. Her website is //www.vivianfaithprescott.com and she blogs at http://planetalaska.blogspot.com.