Startled into Flame

A Poem by Janna Knittel

Photo by Mark mc neill

a grouse exploded

from underbrush,

comet of feathers

and fear. Alone

on the Grand Portage

I leapt backwards:

As a kid

in Oregon deserts,

I’d trained myself

to brace and listen

for rattlesnakes.

Though I’d sweated

through my khaki

shirt and pants

and longed

for cold shower, colder

beer, I hung

a moment, finding

how to breathe

the sodden air,

wishing Grouse

and I could share

a laugh, how I

mistook a bird

for venomous snake,

how it took me

for creature

who would dare

pull one gold

or russet feather

let alone harm

the promises

in its nest.

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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.