My Student Won’t Kill a Spotted Lanternfly
though it’s what the Department of Agriculture
wants— protect crops, livelihoods, revenue.
My student plans to be a doctor, save lives.
He asks why he must draw a line.
Lanternflies visit my deck in fists like clouds.
I’ve heard vinegar works well as a weapon.
I see one outside my kitchen window caught
in a spider’s web and cheer, feel shame.
Spiders are one of lanternflies’ few predators
but making silk cages is slow work
and there isn’t enough for genocide.
I wonder about other species
that don’t have enough predators.
The U.S. Department of Defense has more
than two-trillion dollars to spend in 2024.
Lanternflies are gray and red like wool camp
blankets, sturdy and beautiful, but like kings’ wives,
beauty won’t save them.
My student cries during the lesson; my only
student who has cried.
I admit I’m afraid
of lanternflies and my student’s tears.
Packets of petunia and wildflower seeds
sit unopened, waiting to be planted
on the deck I won’t go out to.
My deck is too small for more
than a café table and two chairs, now covered
in moss and a half-dozen empty clay pots.
H.E. Fisher (she/they) is the author of the collection STERILE FIELD (Free Lines Press, 2022) and chapbook JANE ALMOST ALWAYS SMILES (Moonstone Arts Center Press, 2022). H.E.’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Psaltery & Lyre, Ligeia Magazine, Whale Road Review, Pithead Chapel, and Rogue Agent, among other publications. H.E. was awarded City College of New York’s 2019 Stark Poetry Prize and has received nominations for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize. H.E. is a recipient of the Poets Afloat and Stonecrop Gardens residencies and a Rockland County Council for the Arts (ACOR) 2024 Artists Support grant. H.E. is an editor, writing coach/tutor, and health literacy activist, and lives in the Hudson River Valley.
The Marbled Sigh 