Inspired by an Earthworm

Apology to a Worm
While Fishing on Reed’s Crick

You wriggle (with an r, as only a worm can do)
hoping your last struggle is to salute Caesar
but my thumbs only press you down into the hook.

Mea Culpa.

Your death is inglorious.
You will not battle bass, trout, or even perch
(I know this even as I spear you).

You want to be cast into the river
where the swiftwater will whip you in eddies.
You want a cutthroat to swallow you,
a violent, valiant finale for your earth-eating life.

Instead, I will dangle you from this hook
while I laze in the shade of a cottonwood
and let the breeze blow the canoe upstream.

There are no fish in Reed’s Crick.
Not today, anyway.
I gaze down to the muddy bottom and know your life was in vain.

But how else could I explain why I lay all day in the bottom of a canoe
listening to the crickets and grasshoppers shwishping the grass?

You are my alibi.

The river is much too fast and I would have to cast
over
and
over.

-Katie Suenkel

Digital Short Story

This is an example of a digital short story I created in the class, "Writing for the Digital Age" using Windows Movie Maker and audacity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSsek1n6XHM