Porridge Magazine

Years ago, I visited the Ballard Locks in Seattle, Washington to watch how boats traveled between Puget Sound and Seattle’s freshwater lake system. Watching and learning how boats are elevated between different water levels while preventing salt water from contaminating fresh water was fascinating, but that was not the part that made it into this poem.

Off to the side of the locks is a darkened underground viewing area. It’s damp and murky. But after a bit, the eyes adjust and movement can be seen in the viewing window as fish make their way up hard concrete steps underwater. Perhaps I wondered at how hard and unnatural each step was for those small silver bodies. Perhaps I envied how strong their connection to home was. Anyhow, those fish were in my mind when I wrote this poem.

Also, can you spot the fact and the fiction parts? Answer below… :)

Read “Paying Bills Just Before Midnight” in Porridge Magazine

Fact: I do scatter envelopes on the floor around around me when I pay bills.

Fiction: I cook fish. Cooking anything oceanic extends far beyond my cooking skills at this point.

Red salmon are finished
with their upstream fight.

“Paying Bills Just Before Midnight” in Porridge Magazine