Chinatown Alaska
Illustration by Betsy Bear
For the past month, we've had solid wind
on this river mouth. Between here and the other
shoreline, there's enough allotments, dividends
and sled dogs to make any fish still running
will itself back to saltwater.
The river called Andreafski
because someone from Kamchatka needed a reference,
because in winter the water traps itself
into still life.
Any believer can follow the trail to the place
on the east bank where the pontoon is anchored.
It no longer rocks in October gusts.
It's cemented to itself and anyone who can't swim.
This is the place where the Eskimo women fish pike,
the place where wind signals to the dogs,
the place they call Chinatown.
They say Chinamen helped the Catholic fathers
save the faithless. Each summer,
after the ice went out, they helped baptize
the villagers. Where driftwood gathers,
beyond the pontoon, they buried the foreigners
near the bank, after sickness came to this delta
and took many. The toothless elders remember.
The wind has forgotten them.
But they say the river never forgave them
because nameless graves only attract pike.