Rival Gardens by Connie Wanek

Author:Connie Wanek [Wanek, Connie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: POE005010 Poetry / American / General
ISBN: 9780803285064
Publisher: UNP - Nebraska
Published: 2015-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

Fishing on Isabella Lake

The lake was big enough to have islands,

a sign of wealth . . . my islands . . .

We saw a campsite on the largest

as we paddled by. No one there yet.

It was no particular day.

It was just day.

Once you could get far enough away,

but now you carry money with you even here.

The portage smelled like dust

and fish guts — a little altar on a stone,

a pile of viscera and heads, shining with prompt flies:

someone cleaned a few small walleyes.

Don’t be sorry — they felt nothing.

Nothing you would recognize anyway,

though you’ve jabbed your fingers on lures,

and you’ve swum naked in a lake

without your glasses,

and your breathing has been labored,

your eyes stung by the sun.

At your most vulnerable moment

something rose in the periphery,

dangerous and indistinct, a rough underwater boulder

big enough to dump a canoe into the whitecaps

before you could even think a warning.

Save what you can, quickly —

but that gets harder and harder.

The lakes are low, drought and record heat,

southern summers creeping north

trailing their poisonous snakes

into Minnesota, a no-fault state

where we blame everyone, or no one.

I lost a fish at the canoe

without even seeing it.

My lure, suddenly free, leapt back at me.

I knew the fish was big

by the quality of its panic,

the line it drew against the drag.

I hated to lose it — I swore like a man.

One moment I looked into the lake

and it seemed full; the next moment, empty.

We smelled bear on the portage

but saw only an early star

burning through the jack pines — Ursa Absentia.

Not a star, but a planet with an accusatory stare.

We had the sun in common and little else.

Ours was the Goldilocks orbit,

not too hot, not too cold.

A day on the water

and all we could think of was sleep,

sleep and the lost fish.

We take things; we leave things behind —

and the sum of all this is zero,

or rather, one more day.

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