By Marty Achatz '91 BA, '93 MA, '03 MFA
May sun melt March frost on your body,
make you spark and flash with dew.
May you sing as deep alders
shimmy, a bald eagle takes wing.
May a bull moose scratch your back
with its palmate antlers.
May your lice be few,
your grubs plentiful,
your scat be soft,
without bones.
May June rain brush the gnats
out of your gums.
May barn owl not talon away
your pet vole,
wolf and coyote not gnaw
your dead father’s ulna.
May you get drunk
on raspberry ferment and mushroom.
May a sweet worm surprise
the middle of your crabapple.
May you smell salmon dancing
upstream for the drop of delicious salty roe.
May you find roadkill doe
for a midnight snack.
May you press your tongue to love’s
hairy thigh under a breast of moon.
May autumn molt your coat
to mustard and cranberry and squash,
fill your rooted cave
with ripe plum, skunk scent.
May your sister’s furred ghost crater
the creek mud with footprints,
shiver midnight branches
with her yawp and howl.
May December calm your restless fi ngers
with snow and snow and snow.
Marty Achatz lives in Ishpeming, Michigan, with his wife and children. He has taught writing, literature, mythology, film, and composition at Northern Michigan University since 1998. He holds a master’s degree in fiction and an MFA in poetry, both from NMU. His work has appeared in various journals, as well as several poetry anthologies. His collection of poems, The Mysteries of the Rosary, was published by Mayapple Press. He has released three full-length spoken word albums with the band Streaking in Tongues—Slow Dancing with Bigfoot, Christmas with Bigfoot and Jazzing with Bigfoot. In 2022, Marty was the subject of the feature-length documentary Bigfoot and Marty. Modern History Press released his latest poetry collection, A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders, in October 2024. He has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Marty served two consecutive terms as U.P. Poet Laureate and is currently President of the U.P. Poet Laureate Foundation. Marty is also the Adult Programming Coordinator for Peter White Public Library. His most recent work can be read on his blog Saint Marty (saintmartymarty. blogspot.com), which has received over two million downloads.