I

Daddy sits me under a willow inside its river nest.
I get a can of worms, Zebco reel, and a dip net.

I am happy to sit inside the river nest, until I forget
What time the sun throws shadows into the long stretch.

New River rises with the dam’s release. As it resets,
The water climbs toward my bare toes, well-met.

Casting across the river, I don’t have to think about my backsets,
Backseats, either. The weighted hook drops dead

Onto the river bottom. My night crawlers, wriggling and stacked,
On the hook, stink to high heaven, stink enough for any blue-black channel cat.

II

You catch one, you get me to get it off the hook, he said
From deep inside the waving reedbed, as he unhooked

A smallmouth bass. Red eyes, blue gills, pumpkin seeds,
Bass, crappie, mudcats, channel cats, horney heads, 

We had good reasons to miss school nights and sleep late in bed.
Well after dark, we would pull the truck into the front yard

And unload all the tackle, him telling Mom, Redhead,
We got plenty for the freezer, and not a one of them dead.

Time to scale ‘em fresh! Swim bladder, lungs, blood-red eggs,
Stomachs, livers, spleens, they all got dragged out before bed.

Laced with fins and scales, the cutting board turned blood-red
With nature’s sacrifices, all of them flayed so we could get fed.