Hypotheticals by Leigh Kotsilidis

Author:Leigh Kotsilidis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Coach House Books
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Seasonal Menu

Where –

clouds let go,

whites widen,

in the crotch

of a branch,

accumulation

like sap, tapped

from pine,

snapped

from shaft,

augured

from pond,

chopped

from marrow,

chainsawed

from hock.

Where –

suet blizzards,

swallow,

wolf, drift.

Ice Fishing

Bowled over for months, the lake is stiff and ornery. It is not in the mood. An opening the size of a cereal bowl is augured. But this is no muskie hole, no warm entry into the body. This is where we nip whiskey, vie over gaff hooks, get lippy. No make-out sessions. No snowed-in affairs. Only jigs, leaders and reels allowed. Size and weight a slur between us; a chill. If this temperature holds it will take thirty days for the ice to break. Until then, anything goes.

Each human spinal column consists of thirty-three vertebrae. Under our frigid mitted fingertips, they are poker chips. We weigh risks, calculate odds. One of us is all in.

No more nicey-nice. No capades. Under stolid sheets of lake a backbone bumps. A block of snow grows in the throat. So it goes. Just for the sake of it. Just to save face. Not eat crow.

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