Because Yesterday We Knocked Down
MICHELE HARMELING
the nest of a wasp
and its mate from the eaves,
in revulsion scattered the larvae
with a broom, violently
sweeping them from porch
to ground below,
because we abandoned them
unborn though they were, to summer sun, to birds,
to die,
destruction became something learned,
at age ten or twelve or sixteen, in a single year, perhaps,
the year your cream-feathered parakeet dies
claw-feet curled up from the bottom
of its brittle rattan cage,
feathers now the color of a lemon peel’s
underside blanched by the sun.
We drop the once-beloved pet
under a spruce in the back yard, and continue on
smashing
inchworms between fingertips, or large black beetles,
under our heels,
fishing joyfully, though it will always
mean the wet crack of an axe handle
across a thrashing trout’s head,
and then (fast-forward), doesn’t it occur to us,
reading headlines ticking in red across a screen,
exactly how
this all began?
MICHELE N. HARMELING was raised in Palmer, Alaska, and holds a master's of fine arts in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. She is the recipient of the 2008 Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize and the 2009 Whiskey Island Review Poetry Prize, and has been published in a variety of literary journals.
Her chosen methods of procrastinating her writing are Very Alaskan Things: fishing, hiking, and campfires, as well as running ultras (races from 50k on up). In June 2025, she completed her third 100 mile race, despite being well aware that most people don't even want to drive that far. She is an outdoor educator whose class is aptly titled "Can I Eat This, or Will It Kill Me?"
Michele returned to Palmer over a decade ago after years of intermittent travel. She resides there with her eleven-year-old son, Walker, two senile cats, two crested geckos, and shelves full of books, the majority of which have been read at least once.
