‘Fishing’

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Fishing

What you cannot bear

is the carp gone slack.

The bright hook, deadly J,

piercing the cartilaginous lip,

and the hollow, papery

sound of its removal,

like a knife tearing through a

delicate Japanese fan.

What’s dismissed, though,

is that elemental struggle

between man and nature;

a strange, primal necessity

pursued to great lengths –

the sudden, violent thrashing

just beneath the water’s

surface; the nearly-invisible line,

taut and thin as a spider’s silk

winking in the dusky light.

I remember fishing with my father

off a stony outcrop in Scituate;

the sleek stripers the color

of twilight, and the bluefish

he didn’t mean to catch

and approached cautiously

with pliers to remove the hook.

I remember, too, wading knee-high

in a muddy Ohio creek and spotting

a long gar swimming toward us

with a face like hedge trimmers

and a mouth full of tiny translucent teeth.

We spent most of the afternoon

in that creek, catching nothing.

For toilet paper, he tore off

the sleeves of his T-shirt. Old

Coke bottles were unearthed,

rinsed off, and carried home

in a plastic bag. They clinked

against each other, causing

hairline cracks and chips.

Some, like memories, shattered.

Derek Kalback is a music teacher in Cincinnati, OH. In his spare time he reads, writes, and spends time with his three daughters and fiancee.