If Oil Is Drilled In Bristol Bay
By Dg Nanouk Okpik
Why is it, in Bristol Bay, a sea cormorant
hovers, sings a two-fold song with a hinged cover
for a mouth, teeth set in sockets, with a hissing grind
of spikelets biting the air? Dip one.
The lips of vanished flames in lava coals
glow vermillion as an egg cracks. Dip two.
She/I feel/s a chimera leaving the eider duck. Dip three.
While still in the embryo, separating the body
from death she/I smell/s of arsenic, the Chugach Range
in unnatural bitterness. Why is it, man’s/woman’s nerve scarcely
stifled and sane, comes to prey? While they swoon
minerals of crude oil and sea spiders for tricking a way for gold.
Will they crawl around her/me, sink their eyeteeth in the sea,
ravaging the ecosphere and the ore gold for fuel. Drill.
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