By the river,
hanging my camera on the plank
of an Adirondack chair. Wading in the cold
flow–shallow, bed of smooth rocks,
slippery and hard on the soles of my feet.
Turning out of the water to a sheltered pool–tiny fish
swimming there. Almost like tadpoles but so small.
A centimeter to an inch.
Squatting by clumps of grass that formed
the pool’s barrier and staring in. Getting up, a sense of someone
watching me from behind--at the river shore. I turn and
a surprised woodchuck, large and beaver-like but with a thin tail, stares back.
It kept its eyes locked with mine as it moved
haltingly upland. Meanwhile I inched toward my camera,
keeping myself in our eye-lock.
As I got close, my toe stubbed hard on the wood chair,
the small one next to the pinky. I felt the stab but mostly was glad
to be within reach of the camera--grabbed it and proceeded
to snap. The woodchuck’s serious and cautious gaze
caught in my aperture, face with its mix of brown and black.
The rounded oval back. Alert squirrel stance.
When it was over, the woodchuck up in the grass and trees,
beyond my sight path, I noticed that my toe was blooming purple,
felt the pain it took to walk. Picture-replay revealed my camera
had been accidentally set to “effects”–photos
a mash of painting and cartoon, contrasts in color
overdone, too much black at the muzzle, the intelligence of the eyes
lost. Scathed by eagerness but left
with fascination. Those moments
looking into its eyes, the lens
our mediator, rivet my days.
© Ann Tweedy
Ann Tweedy’s first full-length book, The Body’s Alphabet (Headmistress Press), earned a Bisexual Book Award and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Ann also has published three chapbooks: Beleaguered Oases (2 nd ed. Seven Kitchens), White Out (Green Fuse Poetic Arts), and A Registry of Survival (Last Word Press). Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Literary Mama, Naugatuck River Review, and many other places, and she has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and five Best of the Net Awards. A law professor by day, Ann has devoted her career to serving Native Tribes. She recently left the University of South Dakota School of Law for a position at University of Mississippi School of Law. Read more at
www.anntweedy.com.
