Appalachian Review

Do you see that there? The beestumbling into a flower, legs paddedwith pollen, his hive-mate heavy-flyingto the clover of the neighbor’s unmowedyard. Yesterday, we saw a katydid on a highelectrical wire like a perfectly balancedleaf. Yesterday, we could look at the sun,right at it, behind the smoke rollingin from the west, behind the almost-fallriver fog. You called it a blood moon,correcting yourself after saying it, No,that’s the sun, and we were mesmerized,perhaps cautious, knowing we shouldn’tlook for too long. Yesterday I almost toldyou that the world is mangled-up, that [End Page 64] sometimes, even for all the katydids balancingon wires, it can be me that does the injuring. [End Page 65]

I am on the bank of the Pigeon River.The woman upstream is fly-fishing.I am trying to keep my smallish boysin line, quiet, to not breakher concentration. I’ve never been a swimminghole-type of woman, but this river has one,swirls blue green in the sunshards, almost lures me in past my ankles.She casts and the lime green line floats close.She casts and the line moves like a soundwave, even whirrs before it splashes.My Greek grandfather tied his own flies,now lost to time and an estate sale.I remember his back better than I rememberhis face: flannel against the Michigan spring,sitting at the end of his dock on Mona Lake. [End Page 66] I grabbed mussels from the shoreline, swattedblack flies, watched his large handsbring the rod back, watched its arc, thenthe release.   I lose myselfto the kingfisher across the river, watchhim and his orange chest hunt from above.And then she does it, almost without me noticing:brings in the fish, river trout,pink-bellied, sleek as a bullet, slips it into her creel. [End Page 67]

with a line from Anne SextonThe winter descends here, a fewyellow leaves hanging on. I amwalking down the street, our street,with your dog. My dog now.Small, a terrier, unlike the hunting dogs Ihave always kept. She’s wearing a coat.This dog, I call her my imprintedduckling. At my heels when I cook, at my hipwhen I sit. She burrows under the downof my blanket, and I wonder howshe breathes under there, her pushed-in noseflush against the softness.

From your bedroom, from a mirrored trayfrom the top of your dresser, I took [End Page 68] the half-full bottle of Chanel No 5,slipped it into my purse, felt like a thief.There’s no way not to feel like this, like a vulture,scavenging for the thing that will helpkeep you in my memory.Horsehead bookends. A tiny bust of PlatoI brought you from Greece. A pocketsizedcopy of The Gift of the Magi. Your pincushion.

The winter has descended, but the sycamoredisagrees, holds its crispy leaves tight.

I thought about your practicality, and tooka few perfectly folded bath towels. This morningwhen I dried off, the dog sniffed at one, satat my feet, licked my ankles. [End Page 69]

after Jason Isbell's "The Life You Choose"

It wasn’t Jack and Coke, it was Southern Comfort in TacoBell cups full with ice, no doubt on our way to anotherviewing of Pulp Fiction or to Hoover Reservoir to steamwindows and dream of big cities and rock stars andriot girls and whatever else it was that made sense to aseventeen-year-old girl whose heart was only half alive. Iwas always reading The Bell Jar, listening for that old bragof my heart but never trusting it, sure that whatever it toldme to do would be wrong.

Last night was my twenty-year...