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Clutching
The end of my Zebco rod and reel
As the cast of tackle is flung
Like a small knot of costume jewelry
Skimming atop the caramel-colored Grand River
Dragonfly rattling awry

The vibration tingling in the palm of my hand
As if I had cupped an angry bee
Until the swivel hook and sinker
Puckers
The river’s muddy surface

Splash

Swallowed soft and thick

On the river bottom a dozen kernels of corn
Thread on hook
Weighed down by an ounce of lead
Waiting
For a big greedy carp
To come by and fight to the death.

Tim and me we got that bait
From a stolen can of corn that used to sit
In Tim’s mom’s refrigerator.

While we keep our eyes keen
To the taps and shivers
Of the delicate tips of our poles
Balanced in the crux of V-shaped sticks
Stuck in the dry embankment

Delta 88s clack across Waverly Bridge
And underneath teenagers dig the hard mud
Hitting a joint while sharing a Mad magazine
Their screeches and laughs rising and falling
Like hooks scraping against cement.

We stroke the knives slung in our socks
Wary of them.

Tim wonders to me what it means for the USA
To have lost its first war.
I don’t know.
I say that my parents think that Watergate
Was worse for us
But either way they say
Things will never be the same.

Tim says his older brother slapped his face yesterday
For parking his bicycle too close
To his black and gold-trimmed Trans Am.

We share a plot of revenge.

We listen on a transistor to Ernie and Paul
Broadcast a doubleheader from Tiger Stadium
“And he stood there like the house by the side of the road…”
We love the New York chef turned right fielder Rusty Staub.

The experienced river fishermen
To avoid snags and the false pull of current
Must trust the placement of his bait.

Sit and wait.

The Grand River makes no sound.

Has no reflection.

These kinds of friendships last in a man’s mind
For a lifetime.
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