Kus-Sun-Ar

For an injured friend,

he brings salmon fillets, fish

he caught dipnetting all night at Chitina.

Needlenose pliers nipped out

all the invisible bones.

Growing up at fish camp, he'd sneeze.

Elders said, "Kus-sun-ar."

Otter. They invoked otter's name

to wish him close

to one who lives in more than one world.

Shaman helper, on land, in water.

He tells me otters live inside women, curled up

just above the stomach,

and this feels true. I feel my otters,

restless, disturbed.

My hurt body can't rest yet,

it was so close to the other world.

I'm an otter, skinned in the round,

my pelt pulled off in one piece.

Stitched into a kit bag,

I feel the shaman placing his healing tools

one by one into my emptiness.