The Fisher by Joel Glickman August 6, 2015
The fisher feeds on squirrels, mice, porcupines, raccoons, rabbits, etc. captured by tireless pursuit.
– A note card in a taxidermy display case, Ashland, Wisconsin, County Courthouse lobby
For these critters, it is simply predation, nothing personal.
But I am the etc. For me it is different. I am its special project, its cause Celebrex. I saw it only once, and that was on a night last spring, with the dog, going south and homeward on the avenue. It moved west to east on Seventh, flat out, crossing the boulevard, past the house, beneath the madness of the full moon, too low-slung for a bobcat, too long for a fox, much more muscled than the other weasels, more intent, and before it will take me, it will have sniffed out every place I have ever been by the lasting scent of every thoughtless, hurtful, ill-considered thing that I have done.
How it did run! I am guessing: further east, down and up the deep ravine, out of town, along Potato River, south to Gurney, west again at Mellen looping northward to the Finger Lakes, Pine Creek at the confluence, following in ever smaller circles the me I thought I wasn’ t anymore.
Beneath the gibbous moon, the harvest moon, the strawberry and the blood moon, the fisher runs and runs. The insects throb.
The darkness fairly hums. I lie there listening to it all and pat the dog and think of what the bite will feel like when it comes.
Row House by Matt Widen