Jordan Hartt

Leap

the woman who jumped or fell from the bridge onto the rocky sandbar of the river

jumped or fell during the middle of the daycold daycold white skyfeathered plumes of smoke rising through the forestfrom hidden cabinsmossy roofs thick as spongesriver shining like a handful of quartersdull sun white as a peeled potato

 

the woman who jumped or fell from the bridge onto the rocky sandbar of the river still carried within herself the stillbirth of her daughter and the earthen cry of shovel blade as she buried the paleness of her daughter’s body, more salmon than human, beneath the muddy soil, firs bending in the wind overhead

 

the woman who jumped or fell from the bridge onto the rocky sandbar of the river

climbed up over the restraining metal fence and leaned out holding the cable and then slipped or let go, still carrying within herself the memory of kenny and the way she’d thrown beer in his face, weeks earlier, still thinking about the way he’d punched her in the stomach, months earlier, still thinking about his sweater that smelled of salmon and tobacco, the way he’d duck under the firs in the backyard, bend his head into his hands and click his lighter until the puff of smoke exhaled into the cold air, releasing him, the rain falling on the plastic toys of her sister’s children and the swingset and the mossy plastic pool with standing rainwaterpregnant, she jumps on the trampoline

 

the woman who jumped or fell from the bridge onto the rocky sandbar of the river

felt the cold cable in her hands thick as an alder slicker than she’d realized her weight pulling her hard toward the river, hard toward the earthshe jumped or let go saw white skymist moving through firsalderscottonwoodsplumes of river rushing past the rocks and in that brief instant remembered fishing with kenny remembered the taut fishing linein that brief moment she remembered the rocking of the aluminum boat and the way kenny had stood up as if to steady itshe remembered the strength of the salmon’s tug against the nylon lineshe remembered the sky and the forest and the river shining like quarters

 

so let’s remember the salmon, toothe salmon hooked on the end of her nylon linelet’s remember the flashing lure that catches her eyethe flashing lure that glints in the roof of the ocean like herringthe miracle of salty flashing herring near the lid of the waterwhere water gives way to emptiness and absent sun

 

yes, let’s remember the salmon who emerged out of the eggthe roots of cottonwoods grasping the slippery mudsun splintered in the shallow waterthe wide mouth of glaciers long-since meltedmurky rocks and stripes of watery sunlightgillslet’s remember her pilgrimage to the seathe headlong pour from the river into the oceanthe continental shelf disappearing beneath herthe bodies of the salmon slowly separating like spilled matchsticks in the great openness of the ocean

 

yes, let’s remember the salmon and the fierce tribal march toward the aleutianslet’s remember salmon woman’s periodic leaps from the ocean into the sky like the joy of a pregnant woman in a mobile-home park jumping on a trampolinelet’s remember that upward jumpthe quick paddle to the surface and the leap and whistle of air over gills

let’s remember the curving hanging sky

 

let’s remember the salmon woman and the human woman and the maturation of the salmon womanthe sudden heat in her veins as she looks at a malewho knew those fierce tribal mouths could cause such storms in her cartilagelustswelling of abdomenthe sudden urge to turn homeward for spray and spawntheir very bodies changingthe mouths of the males curving deeperthe silver, the blue of their bodies growing deeperlet’s not forget the hunger of the migrationthe loss of food her body growing thinner let’s remember hunger and lust and water and the turn homeward

 

and let’s remember the lurethe bland rubber taste of the lurethe sudden hook in the roof of her mouththe jerk upward toward the empty skyshe twists, turns, thrashes and longs for the oceanshe remembers the great pink migration and openness of the water and the coppery lust for men and the lust of men and she thinks of the slick roots of the cottonwoods and remembers the taste of freshwater and she fights and she’s lifted into the pure air a squall of gray on the horizonsaltwater rains from her body down to the swells of ocean as she fightsthere’s a sudden looseninga tear in the roof of her mouththe taste of her own blood and bone and metal and she falls free

 

yes, let’s remember the salmonremember her upstream fight into the freshwater

let’s remember what it means to climb up pure rushing rivera fight for inchesthe world a tear of bubbles of air and waterlet’s remember what nine hundred miles of struggle means to a salmonlet’s remember rushing water and dams and hooks and the paws of bearshe fights for the final scrape of her fin on home gravelfor the sharp taste of blood in the waterfor the ecstasy of reddish eggs the spray of watery milt over eggsthe muddy bare roots of the cottonwoodsthe fading red sun the dimming of the earth the dimming of the waterthe reach of the claws of bear

but of the golden beer running down kenny’s bearded face let us (or let us not) forget the way that he looks at her without talking and the way he wipes his face the rain slumping against the roof of the tavernthe pulse of the jukebox rattling the wooden floor

the bartenders polishing the smooth cedar flank of the bar with dirty ragstheir black hair draining all the way to the floorall the way to the sealet us or let us not forget the way that kenny wipes his face with a flannel sleeve and the fierce way he looks at her and she stands yes she rises yes and she puts her purse over one shoulder and she walks out yes and he sits there and wipes his face with a flannel sleeve and then he feels something animal rise inside him

 

let’s remember that some men only pretend to be men but are grizzly bears in the shape of menhe runs after her, in his haste slipping down the rain-soaked stepshe roars in the rainthe tail-lights of her truck kick away from him like a salmon kicking upstreamhe screams like a bearhe roars like the sound of a car crash

drunk he roars and no one in the bar bothers him because they know that bears roar because that’s what bears doand as for the woman, well, they’re just glad she got away

 

the woman who jumped or fell from the bridge onto the rocky sandbar of the river had jumped on the trampoline earlier that day under the black swaying telephone wires

the phone was ringing in the mobile homefallen alder leaves were rotting by the fencethe whole earth was rusting in the rainshe leaped and the sky was white and she opened her mouth to the rainshe swallowed the metallic taste of the rain and she leaped and she held her outstretched arms to the sky and she held her arms to the rain and the mist and the rotting alder leaves and the long wet grass that grew up through the cracked plastic toys and the spokes in the rusted tricycle and she leaped in the air and came down hard on the wet grass and she lay crumpled in a pile of knees and elbows and laughter but let’s not remember her falland let’s not remember her fall from the bridge eitherlet’s remember her leapsuspendedecstatica salmon, in the white smoky air

• • •
I have no idea where “Leap” came from. I was reading a lot of Ovid one winter, and also my grandfather was a fisheries biologist who tracked the migrations of salmon, and also oral Pacific Northwest storytellers in coffeehouses have certain cadences that they often use and those were in my head, and also the line “the woman who jumped or fell from the bridge onto the rocky sandbar of the river” kept playing in my head, as well, over and over, even though I had no idea what it meant, or who the woman was.

I knew where the bridge was, though. And so I submerged one day and came up somehow with this piece on the end of my hook and then I cleared debris from the piece for years and this is the result.

Jordan Hartt is the director of programs for the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference. He is also the project director for the Conversations Across Borders Project, which pairs writers across borders to create new work. Previous creative work has appeared in such magazines as Another Chicago Magazine (ACM), Black Zinnias, The Crab Creek Review, and Prose Poem.