Those years when there were just a few types of plastic
(but more forthcoming),
they had no car to speak of,
they had a long walk to the laundromat
past some cows, a goat, a neighbor’s aged
horse,
and some days they took the wooded trail down
to the pond’s quiet shore,
cast lines to capture yellow perch, pickerel—
bodies gasping on pine needles, dappled,
gills diaphanous—which they’d release
back to the water, but not before
marking each fish
with a dab of drugstore
nail polish,
a splash of robin red or coral lacquer,
a This is mine,
a This is yours.
Sarah B. Cahalan has poems currently out or forthcoming in Dappled Things, Winged Moon, and Psaltery & Lyre. Originally from Massachusetts, she is based in Dayton, Ohio.
Photo by Dan Poulton on Unsplash
