We camp down in the bowl, in the midst
of rock piles slouched against each other
on one side of the lake. Its far bank slides in steep,
sheered off, crumbling, the way
with violence, we can make earth look.
But this was glacier. Sometimes it’s hard
to tell what the world’s done on its own.
Light strips the surfaces:
first, mountains’ tips, then
drops down in increments
until they are fully bared.

In the offshoots, kokanee fight the current:
their heads are the last to lose the bottom’s
color of rocks. Bodies redden, flap forward,
pounding to keep in one place.
Sliding back. I want them to account for
the gravity of trying, existing
in a liquid, changing world. Beside me,
a woman watches, a stranger. You just want
to help them, she says,
voice whetted on the effort
required to keep still.