HALIBUT

A distant relative at your wedding. Don’t wait for the water to turn to wine. Don’t wait for more cake to be served. Tomasina Salmon

Beside your playing cards in the china cabinet triple depth of ornaments. A Niagara Falls snowball from her brother collects dust. He’s the one you once said you’d shoot if so much as his shadow crossed your land. He never visited again, travelled past at noon or night, to keep his shadow tail tucked under him. That ball might have meant something to her brother. She wanted it on spec while cleaning out of his possessions into the fire barrel’s rounded black lip. She recounted pulling apart tapes, breaking the magnetic strip without watching any of it, sure it was contemptible. Yet she needed a piece of him that was clean as snow, hermetically sealed. Maybe she fought for it against a sister who knew “it weren’t worth much”, but would be worth more to both of them if they argued for it. The spirit of auction excitement must have perked up the shoveling of books, music notes, letters into flames.     auction receipts     to get a th...