Trout Fishing With My Son
Outside Decorah, Iowa
The Zebco reel and four-pound test
with one split shot close to the fly
made it cast like a real fly rod,
the weight at the end of the line
making up for the line’s lightness
and the backhand cast letting us
land the dry fly, a perfect cricket
with a green dot, made by a local,
just where we wanted—a still spot
on the near side of a fallen pine,
a pool half in shade half in light,
where the brown we imagined
saw legs pressing on the surface,
a black thorax floating above,
a chance to leave hunger behind,
the redd below, her eggs,
safely covered with gravel,
her nest against the current.
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