Allison Huang McFadden

Jubilee

I.

In April, in our time of waiting,

you beckon me to a forlorn

land in the Northeast corner

of the world we know.

When we arrive, saplings claw

the belly of the car, worry

away rust-eaten metal. I wince

at each snap, each chalky shriek.

We dismount into crabgrass

as tall as our knees,

a roadside kraken engorged

on green plastic bottles and

potato chip sleeves. I snag

on cellulose

tentacles, on saplings

sinking metacarpals into

the backs of my knees.

As we wade deeper,

the undergrowth disintegrates

into mustering,

aging rain. Moss-eaten pines

lob elbows at our

occipitals, take scalpels

to our eyes. We squint

and blink.

Just a little farther,

you say. But we are

straightjacketed by myriads of a weed.

The legion of them sneak raw-

boned wrists around our ankles

in tepid embrace. I

claw. Prickle-naped,

freckle-faced

yellow leaves plaster

the backs of my

hands, hungry

for skin. You,

in quiet glee, say–

Look,

you can see

where the deer have bedded

where the tangle-brush

has sunken in–

They must stalk with

hooves incisive.

So I try it again.

My boot, too oafish

to find the space

between coils

lurches my body

onto fours, yet

these river weeds interlock

in little rafts to buoy me

up from marshy ground, they become

interlocked hands carrying

a weary fawn,

the premonition

of spring.

II.

We find ourselves

at the edge of a creek.

We’ll plant them here, you say,

where the bank erodes

fast. You lower sacks

from your shoulder– four twiggy

masts beached in bags, soon

to hold up in the path

of a crashing beast.

You hand me a spade.

The bugs form

a tacky entourage at my neck

and when I swipe I leave

crumbs on my chin, I am

a golem garbed

in dead damselfly skin.

That’s it, you say

as I pack in number four, a flagstaff

with no fabric

or fealty, just blood-tipped buds like

points of swords.

III.

Sweat-stained and sun-dizzied

I swoon up to a stout cedar hedge

rest my head in its sling

see the knot of its belly button

ooze an oily

resin tear.

I am still there when

a ground beetle

stumbles into the pus,

scrabbling feet

like oars. I could

thumb it to safety

but it stills.

So when it stirs again,

moistens its antennae

with nervous feet,

I still my breath

so as not to bury what I witness

in the clamor of my blink—

it parts its scarab shell

rattles its wings

and lifts off,

soars

—to not miss this

sublunary rebirth, this

resurrection

kind of thing.

Allison (Huang) McFadden was recently published in Ekstasis and Clayjar Review. She is a law student.