The First Twilight Nail of Spring

The smell of Northway moss

and watercress, the cud a moose grinds

stunned to his thighs in a glacial pond.

His beard drools mud-colored water

and his rack shines like mica

glazed with April snowflakes

big as aspen leaves. The sun bursts

into a clearing, a blazing cedar-

pillared cell no flakes touch

where light wanders as through crystal,

and the Yukon moves the way a grizzly pelt

ripples its frame. I shiver when salmon slide

close to the surface, my heart riddled with nails

the Japanese say get hammered down

if they stick out.