Heather Bourbeau, Berkeley, California, USA
In the time before, Thunderbird flapped his wings,
brought storms and rain, fought Whale under ocean,
above fog. Caused waters to rise, woods to tremble,
earth to fall, man to speak this battle into generations
of bands silenced into another history
that forgot waves tall as spruce and redwood,
coasts pulled into sand, remnants of cedar and Sitka
left to shade salmon and albacore, sturgeon and perch.
In the time of now, El Niño arrives like prophet,
drags water back like blanket to reveal sentinels.
Roots and stumps rise like fingers to pull body, grab sky,
sound the sirens as Thunderbird and Whale prepare for battle.
Heather Bourbeau’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in 100 Word Story, Alaska Quarterly Review, The MacGuffin, Meridian, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and SWWIM. She is the winner of La Piccioletta Barca’s inaugural competition and the Chapman Magazine Flash Fiction winner, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has worked with various UN agencies, including the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and UNICEF Somalia. Her recently completed collection Monarch is a poetic memoir of overlooked histories from the American West she was raised in.
