Sister
I burned your keys in the woodstove
up North. It was the big black iron stove, not
the small one in the other room that vents
wrong. What happened was I drove
all the way there from Seattle with the firewood
I’ve had in the trunk since June. By the time
I arrived it was already the end of summer,
and the bracken ferns had curled and gone
burnt ocher and the storms had started
eating the beach away. No one else
was home. But it was obvious from
the way the moss was growing thicker
on the roof and the wind chimes chiming
that it was finally time to burn the wood. So
I started a fire in the normal way, with kindling
from the wicker basket on the porch
and pinecones. Then I added the logs
one by one. When it was all gone I had
to feed the fire just with what I had, first
the contents of my pockets and what
I could easily reach for, lint and receipts,
an old running shoe of mine and the immersion
blender, and then when all of that was done—
the porcupine quill boxes and the broken clock,
even the white rocks from mom’s collection
and the coasters—I burned my keys, first, and when
they were melted I took yours too, and suddenly you
were there, and I wasn’t alone, and you said how
are we going to get in and out now and I
said I knew this was the right thing to do
and you said but you don’t live in Michigan
anymore and I said but haven’t I come? Aren’t
I here now? And when it was all ashes finally
the rain arrived, and lashed the red
pines and the birches and you were still
mad and I was grimly satisfied with what
I had set out to do and what I’d done.
Passengers
In summer I write nothing. I take the ferry
to and from the island. Mountains
in front of other mountains. Foam
and seals. Most of the passengers make
certain sense. Commuters
with earbuds in. Weekenders with suitcases
taking tomorrow off. I’d like to take tomorrow
off. The light fixtures in the galley have a classy
70s vibe. It’s quiet. Someone’s having popcorn
and drinking a beer. I’d like to drink a beer. If it
weren’t Thursday I would. Or if it were years ago
in Southeast Alaska I’d drink one, too. Another time.
I wasted time then in the company
of a man who lived on his sailboat. It was
extremely brief. He didn’t respect me. But he took me
out once on his boat. I was from Michigan
and twenty-three. He was older then
than I am now. We were moving The Tern
to the farther harbor. He told me
he was drawn to other places where the roads
just ended. I asked him where they were
besides here. The arctic, mostly. Foolish, but I
interpreted his interest in the edges of the world
as evidence of his empathy. I was steering the boat.
As soon as we rounded the island there were
whales everywhere. In Washington, I have seen whales
exactly never. Yet still each time I take the ferry
it’s what I remember, the sudden thrust
of muscle from the breathless depths
and our concurrent exhalations, mine
and the whales expelling stinking water
from their lungs, my one-sided loneliness
and then elation as their streaming bodies
Sofia Fall is a writer from Michigan. Her work appears in The Adroit Journal, Blackbird, Four Way Review, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She works in climate policy and communications in Seattle.