FISH STORIES
Each dark dawn before the siren sounds
the start of day, I meet you here on a white
sheet, unfold the old hinges to steal time
away. Only the fuzzy light to saddle by
above the hitch rail burns like a photograph
drawing the horns of bleached skulls out
apart from the barn – all else: black as ink.
You listen patiently and laugh at all the right
moments, grin inwardly at lines erased
before they slip boldly up a familiar fork.
Big fish on Burro Creek, scaling slick
waterfalls to hang and cast tied-deer-hair
into each small pool upstream. It is a test
I’ve grown too old to prove to myself, or to
you anymore – we know the truth:
how hard it is to get home off the mountain.
The flirt with tragedy for each sleek trout, wild
fish stories when we had nothing else to tell.
for JEG