Catch and Release

Poetry

Some fish are caught quite a few times.

-Bob Clay, “A Steelhead Family”

Does the fish caught many times, gently reunited with the waves, learn to trust that this exchange is not some simple catch-and- release automatic, mechanical

but a kind of frolic, a two-step in a welcome dance?

And does the fisher, thigh high in waters,

fluid in the toss, await the tug with joy, cap-

tured then at the thin pole’s end,

caught like a partner

in a daring leap?

Mariana Mcdonald is a poet, writer, scientist, and activist. Her work has appeared in numerous publica-
tions, including poetry in Crab Orchard Review, Lunch Ticket, and The New Verse News; fiction in So to Speak and Cobalt; and creative nonfiction in Longridge Review and HerStry. She co-authored with Margaret Randall the recently-released Dominga Rescues the Flag/Dominga rescata la bandera, the story of black Puerto Rican heroine Dominga de la Cruz. Mcdonald lives in Atlanta.