Summer J. Hart
​

Spearing Sturgeon by Torchlight
​
On my run, I nearly trip over a dead raccoon. I open my notes app & type, “her
clouded eye.” I type, “in the poem call it a fox instead.” The neighborhood dogs
haven’t found it yet. This patch of skunk cabbage. Half-crushed Bud Light cans;
purple beaks; lean, brackish grass. Four legs point to a gathering storm. The lifeguard
whistles children out of a swimming pool. A tug with a rust red barge churns down
the East River. I watch a leaf spiral in an updraft. I watch currents braid & unbraid
thick green water. I watch a hawk outfly the rain, just. Then, rain. I think:
beech, alder, ash. I’m sitting in a window in a teal & white seersucker robe, waiting
for an answer.

                                                                ///

Estuarine. Boneless. Armored. At dawn, men in ball caps cast lines over the railing.

I thought the dog was going to drown when she jumped off the paddleboard & my
sister wouldn’t let go of the leash. I thought I was going to die in the golf cart with
her laughing at the wheel—hurling us over the bluff like Thelma & Louise. Sea
lavender sways with the tides. I watch meteors from the dark belly of the green. In
the morning, we take down the lights. Fold up the tables. Toss red & white checked
cloths in the washing machine. We stack Fallen Soldiers in milk crates & carry them
to the maintenance shed.

Her home is on the mainland now. But she’s also here, shucking oysters under this
chestnut.

                                                               ///

In the x-ray, mycelium maps a dying tree.
​
I think: copper to raise daffodils, foxglove to still a heart.

                                                              ///

I drive back over the river. Someone hit a fox. A raven unspools the ribbon from
its abdomen. A 25-foot inflatable duck bobs in the bay. One of the abandoned
houseboats drifts closer to the island. Some pennies are bad like that.

                                                             ///

I tell her I like the fire ring. The slate sink. The beams in her kitchen, stained with
tea & ink.

                                                            ///

Crow eats the peanut then cleans its beak on the deck rail. I check to see if my
neighbor is watching. The rosemary is starting to yellow. I Google “rosemary
yellowing.” On my walk, I collect mulberries in an empty coffee cup, smuggle
somebody else’s blackberries home in my t-shirt. We head north next month. I’d
like to bring her something. This fruit won’t keep. Fireflies aren’t here yet. Vultures
are still molting in the hemlock. I find a bird’s skull the size of an almond under the
dogwood and decide to keep it.
They were nice bees, the couple recalls, we liked having them in our shower
​
1.
          Shadows holler outside my bedroom window. I tip-toe down. Open the storm door
          as quietly as possible. Three crows scold a kestrel off the lawn.

          Eclipse, eclipse, eclipse, sun ...

          I take some photos, mostly of the neighbor’s fence which, subsequently, I delete.

          Here’s what’s on the table:

          A deer’s antler with an ink-smudged tine; a bowl of oranges; my grandmother’s
          brass candle sticks; cedar in an abalone shell; spruce boughs laid upside down.

2.
          Locals want to know. Doves or racing pigeons?

          Red plastic rings bind them to nothing. Up there will-o'-the-wisp. Up there bridal
          bouquet. Who loosed you like a squall of rice.

          If it were possible, I would lure you down with corn.

                      Here is the secret: let them watch you crack it.

          No chance. Not a chance. The neighborhood Red-tail is on the hunt.

3.
          I open a book on symbology & look up “snake.”

4.
          Have you heard of living ink?

          One day we will print our homes with it. Bacteria will glue us all neatly into one
          body. Honey flowing through the walls.

          They came in through a knothole. All 80,000 of them, a single point of light.

5.
          I read an article about star stones / fairy coins / sea lilies.

          Another way to end the day is:
          owls are calling to each other through rain-slick wood.

          Morning will break my greedy heart, Turtle Dove.
                       Who would fall for cracked corn. That’s not how the story goes.

6.
          These are just words. Start with one word. Hollow.

          Say, it has a nice ring to it. Hollow & ringing. Ah, it’s about trees. Countless & lost. A
          blackened stump. Forest under the forest. Goldthread & trout lily. Once, we found
          a yellow lady’s slipper. I double-dare you. She plugs her nose & jumps off feldspar
          specked granite. Treasure, Fortune, Mystery, or Christmas.

          The lake is thick with algae. We can’t swim here anymore. Tell them to get out of
          the water. In the photograph I’m wearing a too small sky-blue bikini. I pick tiny
          white flowers. Perhaps it is a starflower by flower, hour by hour.

7.
          One summer, I rode a mare into the sea.

          When the hills show their ribs I think, the salted round of her.

8.
          I run through the chlorinated weather of the wastewater treatment facility. Doves
          are preening on the telephone wire.

         Go to sleep. Hush! Hush! The bees are in for winter.

                      Too bright, one jigs. Too cold, strums the other.
I like to think the doe is happy, that the sun warms her neck the way it
does in the north, like it’s always morning
We take the same route every day with our Arizona Iced Teas /
jumping into the ditch whenever a truck tears by /setting off
plumes of flying grasshoppers with our flip-flops / honking our
arms like idiots until the trucks honk back. Daisies & Queen Anne’s
lace crown empty dew-soaked soft packs & broken bottles.

                                                                ///

The dog finds it first. A silver-blue fist, purpling in the sun.
There is no chalk outline. No red tire marks--

as if body parts just up & wander away from home.

The heart shimmers in the heat, in the wildflowers, still as an unset
stone.
​
                                                               ///
​
I’ve heard time of death is recorded when a heart stops. I’ve heard
a heart can beat for weeks after an animal has died, given the right
conditions. I’ve heard the heart of a doe is nearly identical in size to
a woman’s. If I could hold a woman’s heart in my hands it would be
yours. I hide your heart in the left breast pocket of my denim jacket.

I overhear them talking about it on the police scanner. Volunteers
dredge the west branch of the river, find only mercury, rusted
chain, long-lost timber. Men take dogs deep into the woods to
inspect under the burnt floorboards of the hermit’s camp.

You lie in the tall grass behind a patch of black-eyed Susans, your
left leg obtuse against a rusted-out powder blue VW Bug.
Butterflies court in the goldenrod growing up through the floor.
When I’m close enough to smell the beetles in your hair, I unbutton
​your unicorn print blouse with my teeth, & with my fingertips,
gently press the heart back in.
--
Summer J. Hart is an interdisciplinary artist from Maine, living in the Hudson Valley, New York. Her written and visual artworks are influenced by folklore, superstition, divination, and forgotten territories reclaimed by nature. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Boomhouse (2023, The 3rd Thing Press) and the microchapbook, Augury of Ash (Post Ghost Press.) She is the recipient of a 2022 MacDowell Fellowship. Her poetry can be found in Waxwing, The Massachusetts Review, Northern New England Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. Summer is a member of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation.