A Private Fishing Hole

My uncle took me fishing. He’d smoke his favorite briar Stuffing the cherry blend in with stubby Welsh fingers more suitable for digging coal, Than compacting mulched tobacco leaves. A line taut between his index finger and his thumb, He took a thready pulse of a line strung along the pole. He told me stories of his growing up: Painting my grandfather’s car ruined by feathers Blown in from a cock who’d recently been plucked. He would hand the pole to me to relight his pipe, he said. And fumble among the hundred pocket vest Pockets for his Zippo lighter I liked surreptitiously to smell And play endlessly with clicking of its top. A trout would tug my line, bolt arching up Above the water’s edge and topple back to tug again. I’d play it back and forth until I played it up on shore. And put it in a basket made of hardened wicker weave. Some men fish for fishing's sake and others to make fishermen. (2/7/02)