Evening Hatch

I wear my trouser cuffs rolled up, their bottoms wet with river water
because it is nearing dusk and I’ve snuck away.
My silk tie is about to fall from my pocket and wrap around the branches
of a downed tree. I’m not going to notice, and I won’t miss it
as it shreds in the current over months like a windsock.
And yes my shoes, submerged, will smell all year of mud.
 
But here I am anyway, casting at dusk, while off in the distance the clink
of glasses as the bride and groom move between tables.
Here, the wandering edge of riffle, so close, and the towering cottonwoods,
so close, and the boulders breaking current and the current exposing boulders
in the wash of white water I can only see out of the corner of my eye.
 
I drift back to the big white tent, emerging at the father daughter dance.
And although I ditched my fly rod at the spruce
the world is noticeably different and the world notices it is different
as I walk in wet shoes across the room, as if I were tracking flour
from a broken pantry door.  Someone slaps me on the back.
My cuffs, unrolled now.  The world tastes like honey.

 -- Cameron Scott