for Andy

Your wide wild book on the McKenzie spills over my shelf with a vision of gravity-fed life on the river, the thalwegs and reaches, the cut offs, oxbows and beaver, the timber and the wily people of the watershed paid by the board foot. “Where does the water begin and the shed end?” you asked, even as your body plunged out of control on its own exhausting run to the sea. The years of your illness separated us like salmon at sea, until the obit arrived, snagging my throat like a hook. When they returned you to the earth, I tried to bury my emotions in body math, in being born with 1 of a few things, 2 of many, 4 of some, 32 of these, 46 of those, and billions and trillions of others, and all the functions, too, the multiplication of ideas, division of time, addition of memories, subtraction of friends. Infinite joy. Incalculable sadness.

Bio: Jack Cooper