I have been sick with the flu. At first I slept all day – now I cannot sleep at all. As I lay on the couch, in and out of sleep strange ideas come in and out of focus. I woke up in the morning after a restless, coughing-fit and fever fueled unrest with this poem in my head. I guess I need to go fishing.
Has this ever happened to you?
Has this ever happened to you?
I mistook an older midwest, suburban town
for the high plains and fished all day in the streets.
The road was a fishermen’s path and the the library was a rise
around which curled a coil of trout stream so perfect
that I should have known…
I should have known, especially when that stream
mewed and flicked its tail and paced in circles and started nest building
like an old house cat suffering from an hysterical pregnancy.
But I didn’t want to know.
I chalked the hysterics up to snowmelt.
And I fished. Hopper-dropper, hopper-copper-dropper,
prince, princess, hare’s ear, mad hatter’s hat, san juan,
earth and gummy worm, eye of newt, bead-head, cone-head,
crystal meth, créme de menthe, sucker spawn, spawn of satan,
quill gordon, gordon’s special dry, and on and on.
It was something that I had to work though I guess.
In the end the stream turned back into a cat,
and wondered off to hide under a crooked shed.
And I was left wanting.
