The Ecology of Subsistence

No daylight for two months, an ice chisel sliversfrozen lake water refracting blue cinders.By light of an oil lamp, a child learns to savor marrow:cracked caribou bones a heap on the floor.A sinew, thickly wrapped in soot, threads throughthe meat on her chin: a tattoo in three slender lines.One white ptarmigan plume fastened to the lip ofa birch wood basket; thaw approaches: the plume turns brown.On the edge of the open lead, a toggle-head harpoonwaits to launch: bowhead sings to krill.Thickened pack ice cracking; a baleen fishing linepulls taut a silver dorsal fin of a round white fish.A slate-blade knife slices along the grain of a caribouhindquarter; the ice cellar lined in willow branches is empty.Saltwater suffuses into a flint quarry, offshorea thin layer of radiation glazes leathered walrus skin.Alongside shatters of a hummock, a marsh marigoldflattens under three black toes of a sandhill crane.A translucent sheep horn dipper skims a freshwater stream;underneath, arctic char lay eggs of mercury.Picked before the fall migration, cloudberriesdrench in whale oil, ferment in a sealskin poke.A tundra swan nests inside a rusted steel rum;she abandons her newborns hatched a deep crimson.