Copyright by James C Horner

Yellow brown ferns.
My back thrown out, my heart torqued.
Poison ivy, red.

Red, too, the spotted salmon. They twist out of their gravel nests and swim toward the Gulf of St Lawrence. Three Québec autumns pass. They smell their natal waters, thrash and leap up at the 30-foot waterfall in St. Anne’s River. Their lives end there.

Hurtling against
watery indifference
my poems seem dead.

In this Canadian October,
I’m livin’ on a prayer,
tired of being a refugee,
an owner of a lonely heart.
One careless whisper,
love became a battlefield.
Stop draggin’ my heart around!

Your music makes me dance.
Your lyrics unlock my heart.
I begin to frolic with the dolphins.

Surfacing minke whale.
I swim near its arching back
breathing salty love.