Uncle Pete agrees to take his great grand-nephew fishing to Lake Mare.
I don’t have a pole, Larry says. No prob, says Pete. We can share.
I’ll make my own rod, the nine-year-old says, and grabs a twig of a stick.
Uncle Pete is decked out in expensive duds; his fishing tackle box is thick.
Look! I caught one! Larry yells! Flinging a giant bass out of the lake.
This startles Pete who thinks “this must have been a little mistake.
But Larry keeps flinging catfish, walleye and groupie out of the water.
His plain inexpensive fishing rod just gets hotter and hotter.
Uncle Pete is sitting on a rock, staring at frogs on rocks.
Thinking he should have worn his lucky crocks!
Larry offers to trade places, so Uncle Pete will have a chance.
But Pete didn’t have luck there either and did the “poor me” dance.
Snows caps on the far hills
it's gonna be a hard one.
I drive to town for some lumber,
check out a new generator
old ones on the fritz.
Folks got some winter gear on already.
At the hardware store
slow minded Jack Hawkins gives me a hard time.
I hand him a list of ammo I'll be needing,
some fishing tackle, tar paper and paint -
put it all on store credit.
On the sidewalk
sheriff Harper gave me a sideways look
as he drives on by.
Back at the double-wide
there's chores aplenty waiting.
I wish the old lady was still here,
but she died last winter
after a long year of gut ache.
I miss her niggling ways
and the bed needs her warmth.
At the funeral her sister
glared nails at me all through the service;
she ain’t the forgiving kind.
Bolt down a greasy supper
then catch a face in the cracked wall mirror
an old mug with steel gray eyes.
I wish I could find a question
to ask that feller but I already know
that I'm just hanging on here
not willing yet to give
one god-damn inch.
I reach for my fishing tackle box.
Deeply hidden is the photograph of Nathalie.
For two days I knew her, but have fantasized for fifty years.
She stays twenty two, perpetually young and beautiful.
Blonde with brown eyes that danced.
Her sense of humor was keen.
She was our tour guide in Moscow, my friend Stephen and I.
We were both half in love with her.
She is smiling in this photo.
Looking right into my camera.
I remember how hard my heart was beating when I took this photo.
“What are you looking at?”
Of course, not as hard as right now, as my wife of forty years heads toward me.
I push Nathalie back under the drawer.
“Just some fishing stuff.”
The trousers he's wearing are Wrangler -
they're great for his job as an angler
(although on a trip
he busted his zip
and showed all those present his dangler).
written 6th December for Sara's Trademark contest
The healer
Do you remember the night when?
The floodlight came on as we sat by the riverside?
You said you loved me and I quickly said ditto,
A joke you didn’t appreciate.
Mosquitoes flew like silent angles through air
In the mimosa night and the home, the team lost
Three to one.
The dance music on the radio got a silent tone
While the trout waked in the knowledge I had
Not brought fishing tackle. And trees fell to the ground
The castors were hard at work.
Never mind, it was long ago the fish and you have gone
And the river is polluted.
But it will be better since the saga queen Greta came
And healed the world.
The pearl lay
In the half shell
The oyster paid and was spent
The bird fell
From the sky
Shackled to a fishing tackle ascent
The beach stretched
To the loneliest point
Where infinity was met
The man sank
In an ocean of regret
Forgetting what his life meant
And I stayed
Wondering where
My rhythm went
September 2018