Bestiary

Fertility

21 Fertility Early spring, we toe the towpath along the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Our sneakers fit the holes hoofed out by mules a hundred years ago, hauling barges once heavy with coal along these muddy banks. Downstream, near the Bridge Tender’s House, a fisherman above a lock attempts to trawl for shad. The fish have returned to their natal rivers to reproduce and die. We stomp in muck, six-months-married now, growing older, and hoping to conceive. It’s spawning season and each roe shad will release into the water column 400,000 eggs. A human female will drop one egg every month in three days’ time. Let us proliferate like slicks, hairy-back, skipjack, nanny shad, though they scrounge the mud floor for food, ignore their young. We head upstream, retrace the donkey’s labor, towing the cargo of our hoped-for load. ...