The Last Cormorant

A Poem by Janna Knittel

Photo by Ronan Hello

A double-crested cormorant balances
on a buoy, drapes its wings over water
to drip-dry. Dracularian silhouette,
standing strong as wind shakes sailboats’
sails like gauze. A white-tailed kite flies,
spear-straight, crying chee chee chee chee,
to settle and shelter among lashing leaves.
Bring boats in to dock. Evening walks
quickly, and quicker, past the equinox.

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Janna Knittel is the author of Real Work (Nodin, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Minnesota Book Award in poetry, and the chapbook Fish & Wild Life (Finishing Line, 2018). Janna has also published poems in Blue Mountain Review, Conduit, Constellations, North Dakota Quarterly, Pleiades, The Trumpeter, and The Wild Word as well as the following anthologies: Waters Deep: A Great Lakes Anthology (Split Rock, 2018); The Experiment Will Not Be Bound (Unbound Edition, 2023); and Broad Wings, Long Legs: A Rookery of Heron Poems (North Star, forthcoming 2023). Janna lives in Minnesota but “home” is still the Pacific Northwest.