Socioeconomic

69 Socioeconomic Maya Jewell Zeller Silt muscles out the fish, gold tongues of mica burn between gills. It’s because of flooding. It’s because the schools needed money for books so the county let logging roar into the hills. Because men need jobs. Our family used to eat salmon every Thanksgiving, our plates alive with sky— pink orange, peppered meat coating our throats. One year, when homeless Joe stayed for dinner, he couldn’t stop exclaiming My god this Chinook is good, so good! My father had known him for years, and Joe had nowhere else to go. As he ate his eyes were billowed and brown, jaw open to what might float in. Freckles. But mostly I recall the hands, big-wind hands, story-telling hands, their waving like fins treading water. ...