Thursday, August 30, 2018

LIFE LINE. by Chani Zwibel


My father took
my sister and I fishing
and never complained of getting daughters
instead of sons,
unless
we must find a tree
somewhere on the riverbank.
(We are not boys
and cannot just stand up
to go pee outside.)
We always stopped
at the bait shop run
by two nice old people
who always gave us suckers,
the tart kind with the bubblegum inside.
Dad gets the meal worms
in a Styrofoam cup full of dirt.
 He jokes “YUM”,  
as we question the container’s contents.
On the bank of the Youghiogheny,
Dad shows us how to know a fish is on the line
when the bright bobber sinks.
We catch the little fish.
They swirl around in the last sloshes
of river water in a bucket.
He says they are too small;
He unhooks them gently and releases them
back to the green brown depths
to wait for next time
While we wait for bigger fish to bite,
we play dinosaurs.
I like to imagine the plastic Brontosaurus
placed on a flat rock,
up to his neck in shallow water,
staring out on a primordial scene.
Dad never seemed to mind in the inconvenience
of me or my sister or our toys.
Girls can learn a fisherman’s philosophy just the same.
 Dreams are down there,
last small puddles in the fish bucket.
Small fish are free,
even though the dreams are not free,
any more than the bobber is free from the line.  





Chani Zwibel is a graduate of Agnes Scott College, was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but now dwells in Marietta, Georgia, with her husband and their dog. She is an associate editor with Madness Muse Press. She enjoys writing poetry after nature walks and daydreaming.

No comments:

Post a Comment

the golden mile By Stephen House

back then it was called the golden mile and golden it certainly was / with night-life trappings from end to end in nothing could equal Oxfor...