Emily Patterson
Emily Patterson (she/her) is the author of So Much Tending Remains (Kelsay Books, 2022) and To Bend and Braid (Kelsay Books, 2023). Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Spiritual Literature. Emily’s writing appears or is forthcoming in SWWIM Every Day, North American Review, Rust & Moth, Sweet Lit, The Shore, Whale Road Review, tiny wren, Mom Egg Review, and elsewhere. She received her B.A. in English from Ohio Wesleyan University and her M.A. in Education from Ohio State University. She lives with her family in Columbus, Ohio and works as a curriculum designer.
Fishing Lessons
On the dock at King Beach, my father
shows me how to pierce a nightcrawler
with a delicate hook; how to cast
the line out into the pull of the grey
wake, where boats send crimped waves
over the surface like an endless greeting;
how to wait below the bowl of an Ohio
early summer sky for a fish to bite, or not.
Just as we are about to call it, the line
catches, surprising me with its sudden
strength, and I clumsily hoist the prize:
bluegill the size of my hand, all flail and flip,
small but declared large enough to keep,
for our purposes. Which are: how to
scrape the scales away, slicing silver skin
but not your own fingers; how to smooth
back the gills like wiry feathers; and finally,
how to heat the thin filet from translucent
to white, pooled in melted butter and salt.
How to move through this world, attentive
to small tasks that make up a story, a life;
how to look closely at the work of your own
hands and call it good; how to give back
to the water when you should, but otherwise
know a keeper when you see it, then hold on
like hell with an unspoken reverence for it all.
Asteroidea
You’re mine, she says, stringy arms
trapping my head to her chest.
Mine, with the certainty only a child
can summon, body stretched
over sand-colored sheets like a starfish.
When her father says No, she belongs
to herself, she strikes with sudden
strength, limbs curled and clinging,
and it’s then that I recognize her
claim: the one that, each morning,
I don’t let myself make. Prying
her arms away gently, I steady
her water-blue eyes with mine,
see the depths of us surface,
know it’s true when I say
yes and yes.
