PRAYERWHEEL FOR WILLIAM
You worked alongside men
riding the fishwheel
down
the trickster tides
of summer.
Your boy hands hurrying, hurrying,
baskets tossing
splashing
salmon
onto the birchwood raft.
Your cut-up, windburnt hands
that loved the violin
smelling of fish
and woodsmoke.
Tall and awkward Indian boy,
arms too long,
hair always falling
into
your blackberry eyes.
Drifting with the river,
turning with the fishwheel,
my prayers of you
are turning,
turning.