I have cut monofilament lines
and filed barbs from fishhooks
so none of them dig
under my tender calluses.
Later, I will tweeze feathers
into peacocking mayflies,
and tie tiny knots camouflaged
inside red resplendence.
Tomorrow, these tangles of sin
will be refracted by autumn’s sunlit glow,
disguising the vacuum downdrafts
buried beneath shards of rainbows.
Whatever trout I catch I will release,
as each speckled scale
might augur the crystallized end
cast in the lurking vortexes
where strident All-American men confidently wade.
But the eagles and jays still screech
from the stream-side’s overhanging trees,
never drowned and not silenced
below the cold fusion of rapids.
Though I might not knife slits
into stiff silver bellies,
or watch final gasps and flops
on slick river rocks,
my inaction hardly matters.
I must be sanded down,
then pulverized into silt
by the rushing current.
© 2020 Ben Woll
Image by Udo Schroeter from Pixabay