Catch and Release

emily pickering

Somewhere upstate, my father and I 

sit in a sand-bleached fishing boat,

where the water brushes my thigh 

and bird calls soothe my mind like echoes 

off a lake. The arm of a tree stretches above 

us, bathed in stuttering sun, as my father frowns 

over the hull he dirtied, the fishing line he bent 

into waves. I don’t point out how the world ends 

for him every day. Here, I muzzle only what 

I am willing to get close to. He throws each fish 

down, letting them sizzle into burnt wood 

while the sky shakes like a herd of galloping hooves.

As we slide into the arms of the shore, I fold 

into more saint than not, knowing there’s nothing 

but cold rain at the brink, the road rolling up 

to take us in arms like a hurt man. Our arrival 

lands soft and unmemorable. Close to silent. 

Emily Pickering is is a junior at Interlochen Arts Academy from Memphis, Tennessee. Her work has appeared in Rattle, DIALOGIST, and elsewhere, and has been nationally recognized by the YoungArts Foundation, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and the Youth Poet Laureate program.