John Morgan
	Above The Tanana: For Jim Simmerman (1952-2006)          “Landscape is an after-thought, like hope.”—J.S. Sun ratchets off a fish-wheel like machine- gun spray. An airboat blasts upriver flaunting the rack of a dismantled moose. An island like a coffin floats off-shore, and black spruce grow from it, green rockets questing skyward like the piquant vows I’ve made while sitting on this shelf—to trust in life, not death. Two months ago you put an end to pain though I just heard today. Grief takes my skull, noon spins toward dusk, dim lights on water, murky shapes, dissolving branches, slime the river carries