CATHERINE MACDONALD
Leda at Work in the World
As the season’s last fishermen stash sunspot
and shimmering bass in dull metal buckets,
I tow my two boys on one last loop around
the lake. Bait boxes, butts, and soggy branches
bump the slick bank. Offshore, a mute swan
thrashes the waves with wings half-spread,
its mate in wild orbit nearby. My sons ask,
What’s wrong with that bird? I point: Look—
It’s the fisherman. He anchors the shallows,
wrestling and cursing his snake-necked catch,
his hook piercing the swan’s bill. Breathless,
we gather on shore as rising gusts ruffle dark
water. Then, from among us, she strides past,
sheds her sandals, steps from shore. Thigh-deep,
she stills the bird in a deft embrace, works
the hook from its bill. Frees it. Swan and mate
wheel away as she climbs the bank, wrings
the lake from her clothes, bends and buckles
her sandals. Brown braids, sunglasses, stern
and shy, she turns from the lake edge, where
my sons, forgetting as boys will, seize up sticks
to beat back storm clouds in the water. 
Contributor’s
notes
Sweet Box 
Rousing the Machinery
Transitions for Dancers