FLY FISHING


Crusty hands fiddled with the fly:
a shiny death rolled between bony digits.
But as we stood in the waters
and felt the current
tugging at our calves, he lost years.
The flood, so clear that silvered fish
could peer through their ceiling
to spy us towering above them,
rolled past like forgotten days.
The air was mint.
Like a worn leather jacket
his weathered face wrinkled a grin
as I whipped the fly to the flow.

In the rippled stream
I'm tying the line with a lure from his hands
wishing their grasp was here to work the rod.
The fish are safer now.
With one fewer angler to fear,
and a line less than long ago
their gills breathe easy.
I'm the one who's spying a new lure.
My heart is hooked, has swallowed
the sweet taste of his memory
set deep in a once unknowing soul.

The current seems colder now
though Trout pump warm in its veins:
hollow from a place left empty
by a fisher of men.