Fishing
We set off full of hope into the night
as it grew blacker towards the end
of the jetty where shorelights
dimmed to a distant glow.
Wind drove a swell to boom
and crash against the pylons below
sending a shudder through our feet.
The air was bitterly cold.
Baited hooks hung in the dark depths
on the end of a taut line
where every twitch and tug
was telegraphed to a finger
primed to detect that tell tale pull.
The rod ready to be whipped upwards
to imbed a hook into an open mouth.
We would wait…and wait.
An hour would pass. Time meant
nothing to my father who would stare
into a blank abyss in a trance like silence
as if nothing existed outside
of his vision into the great beyond.
Two hours would pass. Not a single fish
would bite. The only break was a pause
to renew the bait on hooks.
Bored, wanting to go, afraid to enter
the sanctity of my fathers dreaming,
I entered my own. Propped against
the jetty railing, coiled against the cold,
I crawled inwards towards my familiar home.
Hours later, without a fish,
we would walk back along the jetty
still in our silence, both of us
unable to tell each other
where we had been,
both of us alone.
Copyright © Paul Willason | Year Posted 2025
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