The McNeese Review

Mar tha Silano The Weeds She’s always getting into the goddam weeds. Never on the periphery. Never on the berm. Loves to commune with the bulrush and the reeds. Psssshing out rails and grebes. Once she said she spotted a water thrush, native to New Orleans. A migrant, she said. In them weeds again? her grandma would ask. In them weeds where there might be a frog to befriend. A being who might understand her preference for pickerel weed. For the minutiae in the mallow, the particulars in the panicles. For each specific spikelet, every willow and cattail nuance. What’s up with her and her goddamn weeds. Why’s she always out there in her waders, marveling at marsh hawks? Who told her to peek under rocks, stand amongst the bulrush, waiting for a bittern to appear? Why can’t she resist the detritus of the details, the intricacies of estuaries? Wetland-shwetland: what the heck. So done with her, her mudflat search for truth. 39 The McNeese Review ...