You still haven’t called to ask when I’m coming home
I drag myself to the pond in midday’s heat,
cast my big emotions out.
Maybe they’ll sink.
I’m learning to catch. I’m learning to let go.
I have so many secrets to get rid of. I think they already know.
I love the thought of hiding
these wriggling redworms in the belly
of some thick-skinned creature wallowing at the silty bottom.
It’s the middle of June, and you still haven’t called to
ask when I’m coming home.
A fish flops, pond shattering.
Through the thick grime of memory, you baiting the hook for me,
guilt eats.
Please, tell me how feeling whole
beats feeling close. Tell me the difference
between purging and diminishing.
I’m not supposed to say it, but I’d drown everything,
disappear, become nothing,
pour myself like molasses into this pond’s
sickening green. Pond scum and goose feet
above me, water in eyes, in my ears muddling. Rusty j-hook
caught in my throat. This is the threshold
between letting go and swallowing.
And god, I swallow. I swallow it all whole: the bait,
the hook, the line, the sinker.
One day, they may come, spot her when the water's shallow.
At the bottom of the blinding pond, I will stay glittering,
an imitation of the thing, plastic lure pulled off the line
never actually becoming anything.
Madi Corell is a poet and educator from Virginia. Their work explores nature, identity, grief, and memory. They are a current MFA candidate at N.C. State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. You may find their poetry at Silly Goose Press and the Screen Door Review.
