Eileen Walsh Duncan

Oral Tradition 

Passed down generations
the twists the turns
uncountable swarm of eels
with backs made of glass and shadow
variations at kaleidoscopic scale
Listen
they’ll cross the Atlantic
return in new bodies to the rivers
ancient things traveling in your sleep
each slippery telling
rises from fathoms

Eileen Walsh Duncan’s work recently appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Swannanoa Review, Stone Poetry Quarterly, Pleasure Boat Studio’s zine Lights, Ramblr Online, the anthology Rewilding: Poems for the Environment, and the city of Shoreline’s Voices in the Forest installation. She received Seattle Review’s Bentley Award and has been a Pushcart Prize nominee.