Winter On The Fortymile Poem by Michael Pruchnicki

! spent a winter one summer on the Fortymile
near Tom's place not far from Chicken.
It was warm enough in the sun when it was
shining, all right, but once clouds obscured
the sun and the frigid Fortymile engulfed
the sweating prospector, one's blood
ran cold and you had a foretaste of cold
death in that murky river where we dredged
for that black sand with minute specks
of the precious yellow metal we called
chickenfeed, a name Anchorage Mike
had called the stuff we culled from the frigid
waters not far from the namesake town!

I still got a coffee can of the stuff downstairs~