By: Sophia Giattina

Smith College, Massachusetts USA

*Salmon fast during the entirety of the annual salmon run, never questioning their Darwinian instincts, nor their own mortality, as they rush to spawn on the graveled river beaches.

Steam coats my pebbled floor.
Naked
streaming river water,
your scent ripples off me,
drip
aaaaaaaadripping
aa down my creamy linens.

Slowly I run my hands along the dip you left in bed last night
and I remember what you taste like,
up your back spilling kisses, those
rosy tinges scaling down your upturned belly
like riptide. You are gorgeous. I

was gorging
before slow nursing, silver sips,
suckling your finger tips –

I will be
aa the one to die
first.

Kept upstream, a piece of the churning,
a ritual burning
through flesh, teething
into curdled fat, unstrung muscle

Watch over
my milky skin, hung damply across bloated sand, those loose
baby sacs
aunburdened.