Michael before Stephen before David
Chris the afterthought. Brothers kept separate
The salt in Tebtunis about the mummyıs mouth
The Civil Service circa 242 BC stuffed
Into the belly of the once crocodile. An homage
To the god (Crocodile). The Civil Service
Taped shut its own papyri. The proper burial
Of proper verdicts. Who lost, who regained
Such and such property. Who made the suit
And who paid the fine. Unrolled, the crocodile god
Spoke, still speaks through the lips of the judges:
The bookkeepers own no genders
The Pacific breaks up. Those waves go flat
Under the basalt bluff. He climbs under with his camera:
An acknowledgement of curves, the disturbance
In the lava, the salt in the enduring crust:
The Civil Service rarely pleasures the curve
Nor the sad divisions, even a death
Among the brothers. I am here where
The Columbia bends wide into the Pacific.
Awe struck, Lewis and Clark did not live long enough
To fathom loggers, mills, those shredded forests
The long saw, truck, track and flatcar
Decade by decade into this moment:
Those brothers - the fallen - one by one, after them.
Stephen Vincent
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