Rookery
At dusk, one by one,
great blue herons
come from all directions,
swoop to the top
of the tall pine across the river,
wings spread,
balancing awkwardly
on spindle legs.
Each time a clamor from the others,
angry arguments, a loud barrage
of squeals and squawking,
until finally
they calm and settle
and a soft sound
like cooing begins.
I sit on the porch, listening,
watching lightning bugs in the trees
against the darkening sky,
and think how nice it would have been
if each night,
we could have gotten to that.
Spawn
Pebbles glow and wobble in the shallows
where foot-long silver herring
rocket past,
a swirling cluster
weaving through the riprap,
looping under the dock,
splattering the surface,
then round again.
And others, hundreds,
up and down the shoreline
their boils and splashes
a raucous frenzy as April sun
beats down on cold water,
green sprouts burst in the mudflats
and an osprey soars past
its talons gripping a crooked branch.
Copperhead
No narrow fellow in the grass.
He’s short, fat as a man’s forearm
and curled up on the steps to my dock.
Tan and brown diamond shapes,
black cross bands, think gothic tattoos
on the bulging arm of an outlaw biker.
He sees me,
his wide head cocks back,
tail quivers like a rattler,
yellow eyes, slit pupils
follow my every move.
I tell him there’s not supposed
to be pit-vipers in Delaware.
Slither back to Maryland or Pennsylvania
or wherever you came from.
He moves sideways to the edge of the step
thumps onto the ground
disappears into the ivy
that I walk past every day
that I wade in to pick up fallen branches
that I reach through to pull out weeds
and suddenly I understand
Emily’s killer ending,
Zero at the bone.
Russell Reece’s poems, stories and essays have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies such as Crimespree, Blueline, Under the Gum Tree, The 3288 Review and Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors. Russ has received fellowships from The Delaware Division of the Arts and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. In 2019 he won the Pat Herold Nielsen Poetry Prize in Chester River Art’s Art of Stewardship contest. His writing has received Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations as well as awards from the Delaware Press Association and the Faulkner-Wisdom competition. Russ lives in rural Sussex County near Bethel, Delaware on the beautiful Broad Creek.
Comments