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HOW TO DRESS A FISH
WESLEYAN POETRY SERIES
HOW
Abigail Chabitnoy
DRESS
A
FISH
Wesleyan University Press | Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
© 2019 Abigail Kerstetter
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill
Typeset in Garamond Premier Pro
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8195-7848-8
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8195-7849-5
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-8195-7850-1
5 4 3 2 1
Front cover illustration: Rick Bartow, Salmon for Jim M., 2006, monotype, 30 × 22”. Courtesy of the Richard E. Bartow Estate and Froelick Gallery, Portland, OR. Photo: Rebekah Johnson Photography.
FOR MICHAEL, ADRIAN, AND NIKIFOR
CONTENTS
[grocery list, July 26, 2015] 9
[Observe the Indian as subject] 21
[The earth was hollow around my feet.] 23
Lessons in Articulation 34
[Grandfather, fig. 5] 35
[Line. November. post-fall month.] 36
Dream with Shark 39
Survey of Resource Articulation 40
[It was winter] 42
[Only the beginning is true] 45
[… the bodies were too soft.] 46
Early She Works with Bodies 47
[(conditionally)] 49
[Pyrrha did not turn back] 50
She Gets Her Power from the Water 51
[every able body] 53
[In a box] 54
Ways to Sustain 55
[some burning persists] 56
[I turned fish] 58
Dream with Shark 59
[In a pile of available bodies] 60
[The dream is only trees] 61
[she fell down dead] 62
Let’s begin again 63
[fig. with ghosts] 65
[(That’s not how) the one from the water survived.] 66
Qawanguq with Fox 67
[No one expected a flood] 68
[… the smell of fish baking] 69
[The water rose.] 70
Qawanguq with House 71
Collection Object 77
Before There Was a Train 91
[She coughed and the women came out] 92
Family History 94
Family story 96
m y story 98
or 100
[not a fish] 102
[I was only a girl] 103
As Far as Records Go 104
Articulation of Distance; Or, The Hero Is Daily Called to Mind 107
In Communion with the Non-Breathing 108
[shallow bodies] 109