Clumsy at the hustle and fish? When life imitates art imitates life: 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…

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.