The Mirage

Boxed lures lay: belly-up, forlorn, caste off sinkers, line-less, relics of peaceful bygone days. In vaudevillian colors of corny-orange: their hooks rusty, their prongs dulled in an unalluring huddle; the bait lies unused their drawers lowered like fathers, they recall summer days with their flies down fondly. The boxed lures lay belly-up forlorn, caste offs: boat-less, rod-less reminders upon rickety tables, these tabled reveries of mist and sun conjoin in conjugal tension. Soon sold to gen-millennial to: decorate walls, ghost grandparents, mind-meld the screen dancers to the much missed external world. Where the fish-belly white daughters and sons could sun with fathers disconnected from the umbilical cord of the Protestant work ethic. Box baited: belly-up, forlorn, these caste off sinkers line-less amble past the detritus of peaceful bygone days when seas and lakes and ponds provided food for the soul. Published in the April 2015 issue of Eunoia Review