APRIL POETS

Hooked

By

Emma Hall

On spring afternoons you sit by the pasture pond,

bait and bamboo pole in hand, and cast nylon line

under the circle of weeping willows trees- seeds

sown by your father. Their whips flap limply over

the water, waiting to be yanked down and swished

through the air to scare squawking geese. Skimming

rusted-encrusted barbs across ripple’s spread, you hook

bass trapped at Claret Dam and brought back home to stock

your pool. They slide around in shallows, fight for pallid

crayfish dug from burrows, hoping to satisfy the grumbling

in bellies left empty in bridled shoals. Each Spring, you

fill the pond with minnows scooped from forest streams;

catfish, carp, and bream corralled in knotted nets

and loaded pails. The corpulent bass will quickly snap

the slightest fish, and Autumn finds you throwing back

swimmers bearing scars of Summers past; barbs

protruding from swollen eyes. Still, they slide through

the muck searching out your slick lures once again.

November

By

Emma Hall

sealing the wind-drenched envelope

of November, trying to outrunthree a.m.,

you slept so soundly I couldn’t stir you

with igneous fingertips

reaching from my fluorescent corner.

while I watched the climb and cadence

of your breathing,

 the swallow, silenced

in this quaking rib cage,

pecked me hollow