We sit on the spillway,
the red and white bobbers
lilted by the wind, while
some force beneath the water
 
brings everything to attention,
the tight line, the echoed rings
conjuring tension inside us.
And when I touch the rod,
 
a living strangeness, a quivering
unseen tugs at my imagination,
not receiving but sending
some impulse down the line,
 
into the muddy water,
and when the sunfish erupts
I've made the spangles of water
the verdant scales, the shudder
 
of tail fin and light. We build fish
all afternoon, threading hooks,
looping line into a tight noose,
running gills down the stringer
 
into an opalescent chain
of glimmering emerald bodies.
Soon our mothers will call
with their icy vodka voices
 
and we will carry them home
like the weight of guilt,
but for now night closes around us.