On the third morning you clasp the charged wire above me, I know for certain who you are. You wait for fish to surface away from where the tide slaps the bank beside the road I walk each day. The way you sling your neck out and the color of your feathers confirm you’re a green heron. You hunt the same space as snapping turtle, residing in the culvert beneath the pavement. She slugs through roadside ditches dug to manage run off and high tide’s waters. She had three hatchlings until the day I saw one smashed in the road. This morning I see you lure a fish with something flicked from your perch. You snatch your prey when it surfaces, partially swallow and settle into the shoreline vegetation like a sliver of jade in sunlight.
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Molly O’Dell loves being outdoors. She received an MFA from University of Nebraska and published a chapbook, Off the Chart, a multi-genre collection, Care is a Four Letter Verb and Unsolicited: 96 Saws and Quips from the Wake of the Pandemic was published for her public health colleagues. She currently serves as the poetry editor for the Journal of Medical Humanities. For more visit www.doctormolly.net
