Inevitably there is a flood. Inevitably there is a woman cast out or cast upon. We speak of the future as an inevitable and total catastrophe but forget: worlds have ended before. And worlds have been born from womb and wound. One woman is silenced, cut down. Others carry her voice. Kelugkanek aturtaartukut mingqu’akamta. We always use thread when we sew. Follow the line, broken or no. This exercise in fractal narrative poetics in English and Sugcestun, verse and linocut block print images, is both reckoning and summons.

Abigail Chabitnoy is the author of How to Dress a Fish (Wesleyan 2019), winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Poetry and shortlisted in the international category of the 2020 Griffin Prize for Poetry. Her poems have appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Boston Review, Tin House, Gulf Coast, LitHub, and Red Ink, among others. She teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts low-res MFA in Creative Writing and Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. Abigail is a Koniag descendant and member of the Tangirnaq Native Village in Kodiak. Visit her website at salmonfisherpoet.com for more information.