I think by now the river must be thick
with salmon. Late August, I imagine it
as it was that morning: drizzle needling
the surface, mist at the banks like a net
settling around us-everything damp
and shining. That morning, awkward
and heavy in our hip waders, we stalked
into the current and found our places-
you upstream a few yards, and out
far deeper. You must remember how
the river seeped in over your boots,
and you grew heavy with that defeat.
All day I kept turning to watch you, how
first you mimed our guide's casting,
then cast your invisible line, slicing the sky
between us; and later, rod in hand, how
you tried-again and again-to find
that perfect arc, flight of an insect
skimming the river's surface. Perhaps
you recall I cast my line and reeled in
two small trout we could not keep.
Because I had to release them, I confess,
I thought about the past-working
the hooks loose, the fish writhing
in my hands, each one slipping away
before I could let go. I can tell you now
that I tried to take it all in, record it
for an elegy I'd write-one day-
when the time came. Your daughter,
I was that ruthless. What does it matter
if I tell you I learned to be? You kept casting
your line, and when it did not come back
empty, it was tangled with mine. Some nights,
dreaming, I step again into the small boat
that carried us out and watch the bank receding-
my back to where I know we are headed.