Summer Night at Heron Lake

by Peter Mladinic

Crawdads in a net
gnats in the air mud under your feet
shoe soles and boot soles caked with mud
in the morning after a night of rain
tonight
three mud children a girl two boys
taking crawdads in their hands throwing
the crawdads into a fire
a crawdad covered in ashes crawling
Addy the blonde mud girl
holding one for the first time in her eight
year old hand
Addy standing above the fire
the ground dry the mud gone
from the soles of your boots
Addy with no mother Addy with her father
on a hill above the silver lake
her father in a chair a can of Tecate
in his hand talking with other men women
about sailing
the five-month-old Zeus
his leash tied to a tree
sniffing the damp ground
the net for crawdads a round meshed
cannister on the ground near the fire pit
the moon half visible through clouds
two kerosene lanterns one on a table one in a tree
the crawdads crawl in ashes
Addy with a thin tree branch moves one into the flames