Fishing
for Happy Jack & Fran
I visit the people-side
of Lake Kaweah
as summer evening shimmers
on blinding ribbons
to pink Sierra teeth
& find Happy Jack among
50 cheap shoreline seats
beside a planted pole,
his line bobbing
in ski boat wakes.
“Have a beer,”
& off we run to topics
calloused hands
will never change
as V-8 power
foams in play
ignored before us.
“You know,”
he pauses without focus,
“I could sit here for hours –
but without this fishing pole
people’d think
I was crazy.”
- John C. Dofflemyer
from "Cattails & other poems"