we’re fishing. i don’t even know if you know how to fish, but we’re fishing on a dock in the searing summer sun, lazily kissing each other’s faces and lacing loosely together our bodies as lovers do; haphazard, precarious, familiar, routine.

much like the way it feels to hold a graphite club in my hands, leather gloved fingers interlocking, a counterbalance of clubface and weighted grip. how my muscles sing at the rhythm, the momentum of arms cocked back, L to L, swinging, crashing down in a near perfect arc. o how that pale dimpled ball collides with the sweet spot. perfect, solid, pure and right as rain. it’s an old habit, this muscle memory and recalled recollection of what composes a natural swing.

so many ligaments, digits, tendons, trains and trails of thought intersect at the pinnacle of this club-and-ball sport. you’re the seven iron in my hands and i’m not even worried about missing this shot. i predict you’ll carry 120 yards and roll the rest, though secretly i hope for 134. (one time it rolled out to 150, and ever since i’ve prayed for a few extra lengths.)

but back to us casting our rods, tiptoeing the edge to peer through murky water at the little minnows as they race past, catching flopping sunnies and taking them off sharp silver hooks. we glance over the glossy water like wide-eyed children; insatiable appetite for discovery—that sweet, innocent kind of wonder i now feel in moments of prayer, or when we’re looking wholly at one another.

nonchalant, i bring this up to you, and learn that you do know how to fish. but you’re from chicago, well really an hour from chicago, and i guess my assumption is that illinois city boys might not know much about bluegills or golf. you continue to prove me wrong.

if my hypothetical rusty seven iron slices deep into the beyond of a red-staked water trap, would you cast a line after that, too? i don’t always hit straight, it’s true. but then again, you feel right in my arms and my heart and i flash back to a solid shot.

honeysuckle haze
o’er hazard pond. swing, miss, fish
for white blots near shore.