PoetrySpring 2020

January at Wappato Lake – Anna Tomlinson

Without knowing, we go looking
for something not there. Mushroom hunting

in the boroughs under the trees,
in leaf & lichen dropped & decaying.

Ferns & fern-dust, dark mineral earth
gone for days without sun, bullet casings

dropped by a hunter who stood here
in thick-treaded boots, a heavy cotton bag

dropped & then re-slung. A knife
clutched & then discarded, bright silver

on the moss. Kinglet with its flash
of red. Chestnut shells long empty.

Hunched & waiting out a rainstorm, the geese
tuck their heads on the pond, fold

into their oil. Brown blackberry canes
& the boards of the hunting blind rough

with lichen, slick with rain. Summer tucked
like a seed between teeth.


Anna Tomlinson grew up on Sauvie Island, Oregon and now lives in Salt Lake City. She recently finished her MFA at the University of Virginia, where she taught poetry, first year writing, and summer transition classes. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Frontier Poetry, Salt Hill Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, and minnesota review, among others.

The author: admin