Tina Blade

Spawning Season

You are built for this 
swim up river, over rock
that turns you ugly. 
Home is the question 
now striking your body's 
ancient gong, a beginning
you don’t remember 
but can smell in the waters
you move through. 

Your answer is pure
effort: a breach, a thrash,
a dog-toothed grin, a bright 
slash bent on closing 
the distance, your purpose 
pressed tight as scales 
to tarnished skin.

When you finally arrive, what you are 
pours from you—soft, pink beads 
roll on the river bottom. Each one
a memory, a mirror, a stopwatch— 
the track of every place you’ve been, 
the map of where to go 
from here. 

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