Fisher

1 Minute Read Time

              I wasn’t brought up to hunt,
yet from boyhood, my obsession was the fisher— 
              lithe, crepuscular, solitary,
slinking silver-dark fur across forest floor.
              Snowshoe hare, boreal mushroom, flesh of porcupine: 
                            as wide in taste as to suit its needs.
              Pekania pennanti—once trapped, 
once pelted within an inch of extinction,
                            now ardent, now bent
              to rearrange the limits of its existence.
Pliant-ankled, compact, how quick
to hurl itself back on a world that didn’t want it, 
              so many aspens darted down
headlong, so many mating shrieks 
              rocketed into the reluctant night.

              We too could lurk and scurry.
                            You, who ask after my obsessions, 
and I, who clasp you when high brays
              pierce dusk-hush, implacable, terror-dripped, 
                            nature’s misdirection where wild habitat
              meets our meandering.
                            It’s nothing to turn away from.
Mate, we found each other at the spot
              where need reveals itself—foraging, fur-burnished, 
                            shimmering to escape.

Christopher R. Vaughan

is a poet, educator, and sustainable transportation advocate and organizer who believes deeply in the power of connecting through our stories. His poems and poetry reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals, including Able Muse, Southeast Review, The Cincinnati Review, Great River Review, Kenyon Review Online, Hawai’i-Pacific Review, Off the Coast, and Del Sol Review, and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net award. He was a winner of the 2020 Princemere Poetry Prize and has received support from the Community of Writers, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, Indiana University Writers’ Conference, and Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference. He was a Fellow in the Loft Mentor Series in Poetry and Creative Prose in 2022-23. He lives with his family in Minneapolis.

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