Foothold

West of the cascades like a whale's vault
out of water chop, oblique sunlight
in a last lap, casts, untethered.

Roots are aerial, on stories tertiary,
or hovering on empty spaces they
keep a preview of the unsealing of the graves.

Cascadia keeps no time capsules - they say
even the bedrock is a migrant from Mexico;
a froth's fixidity, and goat-knowing foothold.