I am obsessed with Mad River brown trout. And like a river junkie I spend every spare moment there to be schooled in hard luck and yearning. After another Saturday strikeout, with three-days of whisker stubble, my raggedy second-hand fatigue jacket, and a sweat-lined ball cap signaling my defeat, I drive my rusty Corolla back to town, absent-mindedly blowing past the local speed trap. Of course, the police officer starts with the question I have heard many times and to which there is no winning answer: “Do you know how fast you were going?” But he must have noticed the wild look in my eyes and softly questioned: “Are you employed?” “Do you have a place to live?”
And I blankly stare into the distance thinking of that crystal clear Ohio spring creek where Tecumseh was a child.
fevered dream
a spring tide leviathan
splinters my shinbone