Down at the bottom of a windy road, at the confluence of the North Fork of the Gunnison and Gunnison. Otherwise known as the beginning of the end. Or the end of the beginning. Whichever way you look at it, a good place to fish most days without your guides icing up.

Pleasure Park

I came back for another season,

to walk caliche paths

among the dead grass and poison oak,

to count winter’s foot prints

and watch the fool indicator

dredge slow moving fish

from the depths of memory.

Leroy sits and smokes, thick glasses

and empty pint glass warping the light

in his eyes. He holds the scowl

of ten thousand jet boat launches.

I wait for the canyon’s mouth to open,

skeletal forms of trees line red strips

of rock, one gigantic yawn of cactus

buried beneath drifts of snow.

Once owned, raw freedom becomes

nothing. I find myself at his bar,

where he waits as if we’ve never met,

pours himself another pint before putting

his hand down, asking “What’ll ya have.”

When I leave, geese at the confluence

push away like black and white breaths.

That there should be a spring, and that

these cold waters must make room

for warmth seems impossible.

Still, I turn the corner above the power lines

and watch late morning’s first light

merge with a midge hatch

like a series of small bubbles rising

through the soft light of liquid amber.