Mimi, 1929-
she still says:
if you ain’t sure it’s edible
feed it to the dog first
she pickles wild garlic and onion
foraged mustard seed
the chance abundance of ditches
gathered summers hoarded
she passes down old hungers
her dust bowl roots—
such relish
Cutting Tools
today the paring knife
cut me open
a slice of memory:
my father losing his grip
on a buck knife
making a pinhole for the light
in my skin
he once showed me
a catfish heart, still beating
long after gutting—
long after its flesh fed us—
he wanted me to know
the bloody wonder of it
How His Mother Taught Me to Survive
in her latest letter
she sent a photo—
the only shot she took that day—
deer in wild-rose-bramble
eating the rusty fruit
she wrote a confession
of hearing it pray
of laying her rifle down
of a hunger for something
besides venison—
she mailed the fixings
for her bitter cure-all tea
half-eaten rose hips
spilled from the envelope
Author Bio: Beth Suter studied Environmental Science at U.C. Davis and has worked as a naturalist and teacher. She is also a 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee with recent or forthcoming poems in Colorado Review, Natural Bridge, and CALYX, among others. She lives in Davis, California with her husband and son.
