Akeley, Minn.

POETRY

by Jane C. Miller

See the rickety house, the mosquito-fed lake.
Coffee perks up and filters the air.
Women sip their old resentments and talk low.
When the men return, they part the steam rising like stage fog from the grass.
If the screen door slaps like a man clapping another on the back, it means fish.
Children wake from sweat-sleep, tumble out.
See a striper, maybe a clutch of crappies, a small-mouth bass.
Next comes the wooden stand like an altar, the hose and bucket.
Watch the beheading, guts slit and spilled, the boat of bones parted from flesh. 
On the cookstove, crisp-frying potatoes and onions.
The lovers trail in, what’s between them clinging like static.