Those Wild Pink Salmon
Now, this ‘wild pink salmon’ thing…
are they just wild about pink
like that designer with the limp wrist
or wild like you wouldn't want
to share an estuary with them
or wild that they're not so good
at jumping up the waterfalls
or wild that they’re pink
when they’d like to be red
and so, wild that the other salmon are red
is it some muted colour-snobbery
like used to be in the Windies
between chocolate and coffee
and possibly I don’t know
between Red Indians and Pink Indians
whose mother got around a bit
though on the other hand
it could be boring on the reservation
being a Hiawatha brave or squaw
10 to 5 each day for the tourists
envying the other Indians
with a real job
like standing outside a cigar store
stained with nicotine
or even inside
is it like the Monty Python sketch
the pink salmon look up to the red salmon
but look down on the tame salmon
but then, are wild and tame
really opposites anyway
even if those are the correct terms individually
is it any consolation to wild pink salmon
that we think
they’re supposed to be salmon-pink anyway
so red salmon are the ones
to be red-faced
I mean how wild is wild
and how tame are farmed salmon
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poem by Michael Shepherd
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