Poach the brook trout

in milk and pepper,

grains of salt on sunrise skin,

that the cutthroat

might have some chance

at redemption.

So we're water. We rise for caddis and rest

in slow gravelly beds, beneath undercut banks,

ready to bellow forth upon unsuspecting mice.

At times in spawn or solitude, breaking the silence

of the night in a body slap that sends

the surface of stars into a slowly settling chaos.

One day, belly up, bits and pieces fleshed away

by current and crawdads and a general falling apart.

One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

Understand, luck is a fisherman's word, so often

brings us gasping and flopping through the mud

and grass, grasped for a photo, unhooked from reality.

What is a life of dirt and searing wind, listen,

sometimes we'll answer, but we have no use for longing.

We have no longing for worlds outside our own.

It is an old story that fishermen

never tell the truth.

The politician is just as bad.  He justifies the moon.

But looking up at the moon, sometimes finds the sun

is worth more than handshakes.

Yesterday, the river suddenly cleared.

I took it as a sign to fish dry flies,

casting over the slower edges

which spilled back into the main current.

But slipping in the swift water,

I bobbed away, a stupid thing to do.

Here’s the new story:  measure words

in inches, a scale for whether a man or fish

should be thrown back.

Frank’s Place

Near the tail out, a heron waits

to take a stab at something that eludes us.

Last fall’s leaves kick along in the rising current

and I wonder why fish would care

about a string of bugs sweeping past.

And mostly they don't. After two hours

of led split shot and long leaders

I can't keep my eyes off an old house

on the bluff. Gaping maws for windows.

Bullet holes riddle the siding. Wet snow

lingers in the corners, reluctant to leave.

I start to imagine it as an unofficial

headquarters. Between burgers on the grill

and the green boiling river below,

I would descend the wide open valley

like a pinball, van full of fly-fishing paraphernalia.

Bounce around through the blinking lights

and dwarfed silences of the road. Learn

the timing and tilts of different fly shops.

One day finally waking up to find I didn’t miss

the boat, hauling it around, a bunch of beers

in the cooler and crumpled tips for gas.

In the off season, a pezca con mosca wizard, stuck

stringing Christmas lights or teaching ski lessons,

printing out sales analysis, or migrating South,

seeking salty edges or silent interiors.

Maybe we are all salesmen, accumulating

in the night sky. Lighting up the scoreboard,

flipping away at steel balls which serve no moon.

Out there dreaming, yes. But dreaming about

a mend and a hook set, some new stretch of river,

pushing against the current, pitching quarters.

Metal Head

Is it a fish that rests between

root ball and overhanging tree,

a fish who rises from the depths,

before disappearing back

against the smooth worn cobbles

of the river bed?  To be that swift,

that streamlined, adipose every color

of sunrise. To be that coldblooded,

that simple. The difference between

remembering yesterday and forgetting:  

four minutes, four years, either way,

contained mostly by water. And what

of man?  Cut adrift from elements,

nothing but an endless stream

of questions. Purists, metal heads,

swingers, occupying pool after pool

like flocks of gulls hunting for worms

in wet winter fields.  At one river crossing

a Doberman crashes out of the woods,

barks bloody hell at Rosie who hates

dogs. Owner pops out of the ferns,

banjo music starts. This for a smolt

and two whitefish, red graffiti

scrawled on concrete bridge:  “Eat !@&$

& die.”  Downstream we pass a bum

drinking 40s.  What’s next?

We might actually catch a steelhead

on our next trip. That’s the thing:

trying to put a fly in front of a fish

on its way to somewhere else. 

Thief of My Fish

Searching beneath the stars that cover Walcott

in a loud, bright blanket, I try to catch hold

of this life which keeps expanding: up the road

a black cow waits on the black asphalt in the deep

black night. That there was a single cow instead of three

or four basking in the last heat, simply luck.

That Travis slams the brakes, whips the wheel,

and shoots past the immobile mass, a miracle.

Afterward, neither of us has much to say. Travis rolls

down the window and smokes. The world in motion,

suddenly suspends. We could be anywhere, cut loose,

transfixed by scales that tip back and forth then slip

away into the current. To feel the brush of wing,

but never beak or talon, to wake suddenly, mesmerized

by the rushing highway wind. The small bump caught

in the headlights. A deer that lifts over the crumpled hood.

The night opens as wide as it ever will, then slams

back to two lanes, complimentary ditches, guardrails.

We pull over and listen to creaking beetle-kill, pretend

to be mindless as we piss. But I can’t help think about

whatever it is that keeps us from slamming into

immobile masses. Equations flash through the brush

as someone drives past. Black cow waits, unsolvable.

Waits like a worm-bobbered thief of my fish. Even if I tried

to keep watch until sunrise, you’d steal them during the day.

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.

Resolution

Mike blacked out, wakes up.
Smells like whiskey before sunrise,
stands in his smoky kitchen frying up
bacon, eggs, and hash browns.

The morning is a hot black skillet.
Snow’s been rained on all night.
Tires spit red cinders into oncoming traffic.
Traffic spits cinders right back.

Between sharp cracks, we talk
about our lives: like rivers
we keep moving but never fill.

When we finally park, slush six inches deep
slides each step.  Drop tailgate, unwrap tinfoil,
dig into breakfast sandwiches.

Even the first of January we can’t help but stand
in intermittent sun, sleet, and drizzle
crushing cress beneath footsteps.

Midday Mike walks back to his truck.
Surrounded by anglers, picks a winter caddis
off the snow, shows someone and they scoff.

Sometimes what matters most slips.

All day long Mike and I fish two different set-ups.
One with nymphs, who cares what kind,
the other with six inch segmented streamers.

Sometimes it takes three hooks to catch hold.

Drive home Mike talks about times barreling back,
trying to avoid going over sleep’s great falls.

I can’t help but think about hangovers,
waking up tomorrow with no river to go fishing on
and Mike back at work.  Fight or flight:

three hundred and sixty four days left
to gather slabs of hope.

Everything buried shall remain buried 

beneath the soft swales of shifting snow:

the planter, the grill, the broken bicycle.

One day accumulates on the next.

Inches after hours, feet after weeks,

until the world is a sharp lipped cornice

curled up against winter’s white mountains.

How inexactly these solitudes slough away.

How relentlessly they re-accumulate.

The ranks will rise, tied to ropes,

tied to roofs, white knuckled shovels,

eyes to windshields, hands to wheels,

plowing deep into the winter night.

Nothing but the sound of a storm

sweeping before it the new fallen snow…

and maybe three split shots hitting the water

before another fish sets the drag singing.

Beer and Fish

Piaute Red, Bullhead Bronze, Old Bluegill,

Pumpkinseed Seasonal Ale, Fast Bass Malt,

Stout Trout Stout, Walleye Rye, Crappie Lager,

Pan-fish Pale, Sea Run Porter, Irish Salmon Slough,

Whitefish Whit, Poindexter Brown, Sierra

Red Band Amber, Husky Musky I.P.A.

Five Grain Minnow Mush, Fourteen Mile Reach,

Three Eyed Perch, Two Year Draught, Hanford Steelhead.

Lahontan Light, Bitchy Brook Brew, Low River Red,

Irrigation Ditch Dark, Heavy Sediment Stout,

Trashfish Tailout, Roundtail Relief, Razorback Rough,

Native Nail Biter, Non-Native Bite Nail-er, Poach n’

High Tailer, Yeast n’ Dregs, Ham n’ Pegs, Didymo

Draft, Whirling Disease Wheat, Mud Snail Slap,

Heavy Metal Headwaters, Troubled Tributaries,

Tricky Squawfish, Stalling Senators, Spectacular

Spectators, Quench Not Staunch, Save Salmon,

Save Steelhead, Save Rivers and Streams.

Flavor Savors Last Sip. Slip Slop. Fish More,

Catch More, Release More. Then Enjoy Your Beer.