Gauguin In Ketchikan
Gauguin’s walking stick
was tipped like a
plumber’s iron, good
for probing puddles
pocking Dock Street
or prodding spawned-out
salmon washed up
on Ketch Creek
The shape of a shoe
once popular in Manhattan
formed a grip from which
flowed a nude, her back
arched to a curve
hair billowy and fine-grained
the belly-button made
with a knife’s prick
Below her feet a snake
wrapped the shaft to the base
where it ended in the mouth of a frog
which impressed no one from
the curio shops above the wharf--
those ideas having been stolen
with the otters and the totems
a hundred years before
The pawnshop man said
a boat heading south in a week
might have room if you knew
how to cook or patch seine
He took his souvenirs: a key chain, a case
of V.D., a set of worn out chisels
Made in Japan
stamped on the tang