for clare

i loved to fish. it was akin to church and prayer when i was little.
(In that most gauzy age, when you are tenuous but invincible)
monsters under the bed and imaginary friends were freshly dead
but cutoffs, county fairs and the accidental brush from a cute boys hand
were just being born.
i stood, on a rocking dock
bugs like a cello
the green-black membrane surface seemed itself alive (and almost unpierceable).
i heard the stories. i knew about the town submerged down there.
thriving with algae. gar in and out of broken windows. rotted but alive.
i cast my lure to the magic places my eyes ached to see,
and retrieved from its solemn depths on the end of my line
a shimmering, writhing, gasping glimpse of mystery and hope.