for Kevin
This
time we'll catch what we're after.
We
can catch what you choose –
And
take too many on one line,
All
dark flat muscle –
The
lake at Grosvenor raging with fins –
The
whole sharp‑skinned mess twining.
For
breakfast we'll brown old days in the pan
Like
that bass Dad mashed in butter,
Fry
them whole at lunch like the Greek sailors
Unfolding
their weighted green lines
Straight
down off thick cork cards,
Relishing
the guts and the eyes,
Their
tongues rooting the flesh from bone.
It
won't be like last time,
Going
alone, when we dumped our bait
And
brown blood stained the cove,
The
day I tried to make it easy for us:
No
casting, no waiting,
No
posing over shallow water
Reflecting
up our fishing crowns.
We
would feed the fish and head home.
We
couldn't be forever banging squid
On
the hull like angry schoolteachers,
Or
squinting, trigger‑fingering the weight
While
the fish gape limpeyed at the barb.
I'm
waiting to hear Dad at the door:
Wake
up,
let's move it.
I want to show you it's over,
But
sometimes it still comes back –
On
my back in the dark, waiting
Again
for a season, the right one.
The
one I slept through, and woke up taller.