The River I Carry In My Bones

The bones of my body lay long under the water
in summer, a trickle of creek so quiet it says nothing,
just the way my parents taught me to be: silent.
The anger in my blood is cooled by the silk flowing slow
over me. But in winter, the creek is a river and I can't stay in long
where the song is the roar of the current almost frozen.
Sometimes I lay on the long grass whitened by ice
and put my face under the water until my eyelashes freeze open.
I see steelhead fry suspended in animation, hanging in the water
like puppets held by strings as invisible as fishing line,
as invisible as my own child hands who could not help or prevent
the violence done to my brothers and I.

I have not been taught how to carve weapons from my tears,
my bruises, welts, broken bones.
I can only hope before I die, I learn to speak out loud
and let the silence drop from my flesh like unwanted clothes.