We women are legendary here—for keeping
the stories churning a current round
and round this island.

An aunt opened a brothel to survive
and called it The Bakery, built
a building atop a log raft and headed
to the fishing grounds to sell "bread."

Then there's the Episcopal priest and
her affair with a legit baker's married
daughter who ended up loving and living
together raising kids. Amen to that!

And of course, there's my mother
who changed our island culture—
the rule against girls wearing pants
in school.

My grandmother, aghast at the
adherence to the rule in wintertime Alaska,
accompanied her daughter, recently
recovered from mono, to high school.

Grandma told the principal if he didn't
let my mother wear pants, and she got sick
again, he was going to pay her hospital bills.

So, from then on, all the girls were allowed
to attend school with warm legs, their carefree
steps strode two at a time up the old, varnished
wood stairs—nothing would keep them from rising now.