Current
Issue
Volume 12.2
Show Contributors
July Westhale / Jess Yuan / Nico Amador / Sarah Lynn Hurd / Flora Field / Jennifer Moore / Maria Picone / Nichole Turnbloom / Silvia Bonilla / Morgan L. Jenkins / John Fadely / Sarah Brockhaus / Keith Woodruff / Cecelia Hagen / Austin Segrest / Angie Macri / Joannie Strangeland / Rayan Al-Awar / Emily Adams-Aucoin / Miriam Milena / Catherine Broadwall / Ashley Vogel / Ha Kiet Chau / Clayton Adam Clark / 2025 Michelle Boisseau Poetry Prize Winner: Isaac Salazar / Runner Up: Alexa Doran / Finalist: KT Herr / Finalist: Ellen Kombiyil / Finalist: Arlene DeMaris / Finalist: Isaac Salazar
Keith Woodruff
—
Live Bait
For sun fish, black and yellow tent worms
I broomed down
from heart-shaped catalpa leaves.
For bass, nightcrawlers plucked
from grass after rain and leopard frogs
drumming against a coffee can lid.
My alphabet of bait. I forget
the lakes and ponds. Remember only
the frog now. Piercing a hook up
through the white petal of its throat,
and out the beak-nose with a quick
stitching motion. Croaks rising
to high-pitched chirps, small toes
pushing against my grip. I only caught
that sound: the sharp pop, hook
breaking skin, air whistling out.
How many times can one frog die?
O, tiny gold-eyed hell, I see you.
Bio Copy here
