Grindivak, Iceland, by VA Smith

Fish Drying, by Jon Gunnarsson (Iceland) 1980. Photo provided by the author.

Grindivak, Iceland
        after Jon Gunnasson, Fish Drying, 1980

June days that never night,
we bike at midnight through
sun and wind to the harbor, 

walk with care across shiny
basalt rocks to the salting
station, carry the slit cod

stacked like fine, cotton aprons
to the largest stones, bend to
flatten their salty, sopping

flesh to dry in sunshine.
I story my sister about
Ràn, our goddess planting

whales into water, providing
salty beneficence. When we
rest, Anna opens her purse, 

pours krónur into her palm
saying: “Fish is work, Asta, 
only that.” Not for me.

When wind’s up, I pretend
I might sail the heavy triangles
I hold to Norway, or fly them

high, like white kites. My sister
shivers when wet needles prick
our faces. I say, “Your cod seems

a folded umbrella. Open  
it! Fish are slippery— 
an entire universe.”

VA Smith

​VA Smith is the author of the poetry collections Biking Through the Stone Age (Kelsay, 2022) and American Daughters (Kelsay, 2023).  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in dozens of literary journals and anthologies, among them:  Southern Review, Calyx, West Trade Review, and Ginosko Literary Journal. A former teaching professor at Penn State University and the founder of Chancellor Writing Services, VA is currently at work on a third collection of poems titled Elsewhere (when she is not biking, hiking, loving on her partner, friends and family, or serving as a home chef).