Strewn with driftwood lapping gently she
strides in with her clothes on water
slapping her big thighs a big
unrecognizable rodent with
“maggots coming out of its butt”
tiny breakable freshwater mussels pink
plastic tampon case because there are
no shipworms, they say, and the water
is so cold, the dark bottom’s
an underwater museum, all shipwrecks,
all leavings perfectly preserved.
Hank builds a long, low mountain ridge,
decorates it with tiny mussels, “Mount Rushmore
before it was Mount Rushmore, when
it belonged to the Indians,” who cause
an avalanche and send the mountain tumbling
onto the white people, so they can’t have it. So
nobody has it. He has dug in vain for Indian
artifacts. The driftwood stays cluttered
at the edge unmoved by tides. The big
limpid eye of water floats above the shore
and can’t be seen all at once.