Cape Disappointment by Christine Hemp Tides are deadly here. It’s only  on the ride back home that you recount the desolation of your shipwrecked  boyhood. Across the chasm of the front seat, it’s not clear how you endured. Lewis and Clark retreated from the coast, sat out the stormy season under dripping cedars, the men coughing in the smoky fort. Skins hung by the fire took too long to dry, what with rain relentless for three soggy months. Each meal a monotony of salmon. In the truck, the quiet miles reveal the wilderness you cannot move beyond. Your sharpened kitchen knives, the closet full of dry-cleaned shirts; stuffed oysters can’t conceal what lies beneath. Your profile in the dash light indicates you’re not weathering  your winter well. Just waiting for the days to clear so you can break camp, a tactic mastered long ago. The markers for your claim on me are made of pine. Softwood rots quickly in the damp. I’m pulling up the stakes one by one, reclaiming old growth roots and ferns ready to unfurl. I’ve grown weary of temporary quarters. I’m taking the right fork home. To my place. Away from this undertow where the Columbia opens herself to the falsely-named Pacific. I’ll be laying down my skins, digging in.   home · resume · recent publications · schedule · technical writing · course offerings list of clients · connecting chord · programs ·  poetry pages · bardic performances · contact Christine Hemp P.O. Box 674 Port Townsend, WA 98368 tel: 360-385-9005