Red Poem by Val Morehouse

In a frosty breeze that reeks of stung oranges and peat
black trucks gather to load the slaughter.
Summer’s heat lost, tart scarlet swamps are
flooded and flushed alive by the hunters.

Like flickering comets hidden pearls turn and swarm toward the sun,
a mad ripple of hissing scarlet bodies.
Too soon the garnet roe of water meadows surrenders.
Barely camouflaged by a mist of russet leaf and vine,

Clawed belly up as the steel fingers rake in the bitter harvest,
these earthy recruits were born to be marched, no, conveyed
By the battalion, like prisoners, and rolled away
in so many plastic body bags, yet

The blood of the bog lives on in the red
meat of cranberries that feast our winter dark.