Days Unfold From this toy-sized pond on
Plumb Road a Blue Gill struggles at my
feet, the line spittle-like trails its
lip to grass. I don't pay attention to the
familiar flop and wheeze, instead I watch
my neighbor take his grandchildren for
rides in an old Ford tractor. He circles, does figure eights; three small heads bob behind
him. I want to wave, maybe stick
my thumb out for a ride, then, in the bump through
high grass and whir of mosquitoes, ask
him to drive past my driveway and
his, past Grambling, keep going to
where we see only corn-fields and cows and the slow hills of Ohio. His wife comes to their
porch, waves to them-- the afternoon sun strikes her
dress, her smile of hip, causing me to shudder
with a warmth close to embarrassment. He heads for home. The Gill already collects the
first flies. I study the random breach of water
and air when the fish jump. After losing at love again,
my father flaked the empty barn with
buckshot where now daylight composes a
litany of shadows on the walls. The barn's skeleton folds a little more each
season, just like the memory of my father curling into
floor dust, the puff of dirt left in air to refract the
sun like fish scales. I sidearm a few stones,
trying for at least five good eyes rippling back to
me. I'm sure that in an hour from now the
children next door will get restless. Maybe after a breakfast of hot cakes and honey
they'll run outside with the old man trailing
them, and I'll go over, ask if
they'd like to fish. Maybe ask for a ride on his
tractor in return. Until then, I'll sit here
like every morning and daydream of a woman not yet mine who
stands next to me in this marshy grass. She'll block the sun with one hand, place the other on my
sunburned shoulder and listen with me to the fish brush the surface. |
