CONTENTS

Masthead

Benefactors

Editor's Note

Poetry

Fiction

Nonfiction

Interviews

Book Reviews

Contributors' Notes

Father Explains

Taylor Rickett

This is how you tie the hook into line's meager knot, where to curl fingers—neck, shoulder, wrist, freshly done hair, how twisted twine casts into flickering schools and can fill a deflated belly. This is how your tongue swells up in your mouth. This is how you cut out the mud vein, proper. Here is where your hand goes, your eyes. This is how to raise a seventeen inch crappie or red-ear from the lake's murk, how to search out her spot. This is where you find them. This is the smell of grill before the fillets lie across the grates, her perfume smoky in your nostrils. Here are your teeth and glinting eyes when she enters a room, where your knuckles find spine, her cheekbone. This is when you know it's getting good. These are ribs, framed in bone, rising under the sheet. This is how you move in for them. This is how you lie down the dorsal fin, avoid ten spiked prongs protruding. This is how you clean them. This is how you dress them. This is what we do.