Cormorant, and: Island Triolet, and: Biracial Triolet

Abstract

Cormorant, and: Island Triolet, and: Biracial Triolet Michael Prior (bio) Cormorant Like living oil poured into the waves:that cormorant,which seemed so fully itselfas it plunged between the breakersveining the bay—flashof scale and starling ridingthe iridescent S-curve of its neck.I can't recall if I've actually seen the birdslip into the Pacific, or merelyheard it described, watched it onscreen. I havefelt the same salt-scour of windacross the Strait. Feel it stillduring a dream's windfallof unexpected flight. Those moments before sleepwhen sights and signsrise through memory like a line reeled in:the coastline's raggedEtch A Sketch through fog,the lights of the island town on unceded landwhere I grew up, its ditchesteeming with small frogsthat looked like they were scraped from clay.I read that everything rememberedis a composite of feelingand function, layered like featherson a wing. One day,the island will sink below sea level.The ditches and frogs are already gone.Gone, too, my grandmotherwho brought me to the brick poolon summer morningsand counted off the seconds—ichi, ni, san—as I sculled water,blew bubbles from my nose. [End Page 23] Still going: my grandfather,and in him, stories of his fatherchumming the waterfor mackerel, wings thrumming overhead.And soon: everyone else who rodethat cold, cramped trainto a camp in the interior. Its rowsof shacks. The streamwhere they netted sticklebacks.The gravel road their fathers were forced to build.The hushed torrentof a language I don't speakwhen they remembered for mewhat they wished to forget.What memories resisthistory or myth? What resisted,that fall night at 18,when I waded past the pier aloneuntil the water touched my chin?The acne on my back burned in the cold.I've never been more afraidof me. Never a swimmer,I failed test after test,shivering in the shallow end,water refracting the far places in my face.My high school English teacherinsisted we avoid the verb to seembecause it implies uncertainty.The cormorant seemsa dream of belonging.Its raised wings: the same shapescrawled across a child's crayon horizon,sunset dividing distantfrom close. Tonight, [End Page 24] I learn they're culling seabirdsdown the coast.I watch videos of menwith reflective vests and riflesriding skiffs toward the guano-spattered nests.In the grainy clips, I can't decidewhich birds are dyingand which are diving into the sea. [End Page 25] Island Triolet The storm roils the river: warmeryears lap against the berms. This rain'sreminder that every burning summerstokes a rising storm. Ocean and river—changed and changing—spill overberry fields and bogs. The floodplain'sditches roil silver. A warmerworld rises to my parents' door. [End Page 26] Biracial Triolet You read, Check only one for race:Boxes cramp the screen's dim glass.Fingerprinted and photographed,the more you read, the more's erased.Fill in the scrolling forms this way:his hair, her skin, your face half maskonscreen. To choose is to erase.You make the choice you cannot make. [End Page 27] Michael Prior michael prior is the author of Burning Province, which won the Canada-Japan Literary Award and the BC & Yukon Book Prize for Poetry. He is the recent recipient of fellowships from the New York Public Library's Cullman Center and the Jerome Foundation. His poems have appeared in The New Republic, Poetry, and the Kenyon Review, among other publications. Copyright © 2022 Michael Prior