Gathering Hickory Nuts Before the Examination

Abstract

Gathering Hickory Nuts Before the Examination Bill King (bio) This time of year, the morning fog—cloaking rainor sun—makes no promises. But come what may,there's always work to be done: dead-head the marigolds,survey the garden, removing what no longer fruits. Instead, you rattle the mower into position and pullthe cord for the last cut of the season. Soon, the dullblades are knocking off the dark brown husks of hickorynuts that have dropped, then rolled, from the tree— some, all the way to the road. The rest—spit outas hard white shells you'll gather to crack, but notbefore dumping in water to tell the good from the bad,keeping the ones that sink. After lunch, sit on the crinkly white paper of the examination table until the doctorcomes in, asks you to lie back, then begins to presshis fingertips beneath your ribcage (yes, you say, butit's always tender where they took it away) to just above your pelvis (and there, where it came back). Don't ask,How long? You get what you get. Knock the hulls offa hundred lives and most will float like ghosts; they'reshriveled and hollow before they even hit the ground. [End Page 67] Bill King Bill King grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He is the 2021 HeartWood Poetry Prize winner and a Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has appeared in Kestrel, Appalachian Review, 100 Word Story, Still: The Journal, Naugatuck River Review, and many other journals and anthologies. He holds an M.A. in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Georgia and teaches creative writing and literature at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia. His first chapbook of poetry is The Letting Go. Copyright © 2022 Berea College ...