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Point HopeAfter you diedI began traveling by dog sled Day and night... I went out to trap a seal early in the morning When I came back, my husband was dead His body lay half in and half out of the shack Burned by the kerosene heater, frozen in the snow Dogs whined on the line Tied to the stump of a tree that had no reason to be there I took my knife and shaved his face bare But I couldn't move the body alone There was no fuel. The tundra was frozen. I couldn't slip the gold wedding band off his finger. I put the seal carcass on the sled and hitched up the dogs. When the Bering Strait is frozen You can cross it, from island to island I drove the dogs, and they ran Southeast across a frozen sea. Aurora Borealis played both day and night Echoing green as a bass drum in my ear. I ate the seal, piece by cold piece, fed the dogs Who hated me. In this fashion I traveled from the Arctic Circle Until January, when I reached The small decrepit town of Point Hope. It was a town of mud streets, a bar, Tarpaper windowsr a frozen bay The hundred or so inhabitants of the town Looked shocked to see me on my sled I cut the lines and set the dogs free Then fainted on the icy street. I came to in a bed beneath a skin In a room lit by fire "I am the mayor of Point Hope," Said a voice as a man's face Came into focus above my pain. |
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Issue #6, January, 1999 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.