(noun): the process or period of gathering in crops, as in “We helped with the harvest.” As in the bushel baskets we filled with apples the birds hadn’t yet pecked or pooped on, the apples that hadn’t gone squooshy in their rot. Those you threw at me, chanting dog poop, dog poop until our father roared out the back door, beer can in hand, and threatened to tan our fannies. We knew the belt, its hiss and whistle, its sting. Dog poop, dog poop, you whispered as we bent and heaved.
(verb): to catch or kill (animals) for human consumption or use, as in “the quantity of shrimp harvested has risen.” As in you who starved for days after swallowing that tab of bad acid and imagining the chicken leg in your hand was pleading with you not to eat it. You who heard the carrot scream when it was yanked from the earth. You for whom even shrimp were huge and holy.
(verb): to move (cells, tissue, or an organ) from a person or animal for transplantation or experimental purposes, as in, they took out your organs—lungs, heart, liver, spleen—and packed them in small red coolers, the kind you used to fill with beer you’d snitched from the fridge, coolers carried to waiting airplanes and flown to wherever. Harvest, as in a field of sunflowers in late summer. I see you there, brother, I’m listening for whoever has your heart. I’m on high alert for its tick and pulse, its goodness and mischief. Watch me hug a total stranger, wish them a beautiful day, a wonderful life. See me wish you back.
Sarah Freligh is the author of eight books, including Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize; Hereafter, winner of the 2024 Bath Novella-in-Flash contest; and the recently released short story collection Other Emergencies. Among her awards are poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Saltonstall Foundation.