Mouths shackled, dead or dying, <br />the bluegills, rainbows and browns <br />dangled from shiny metal <br />my father had thrown like chain <br />into the shallows, noon sun <br />shivering the lake's surface <br />like mirage as snake doctors <br />zigged and zagged—deep-blue needles <br />threading air. My bobber snagged <br />again in reeds, hot and tired, <br />I entered a grabble of briars, <br />tightroped a creek-board to where <br />my parents lay on a bank <br />blanketed by cove-moss, each <br />turned to other, my mother's <br />hand tucked inside my father's <br />half-unbuttoned shirt, his hand <br />brushing ground-lint from her hair, <br />and in that moment I knew <br />I did not belong to them, <br />not in that moment, and though <br />the gift of that summer took <br />years to unveil, something stirred <br />even that day when they came <br />back to me, my mother's waist <br />cradled by my father's arm, <br />his free hand reaching to lift <br />the stringer. I remember <br />how it surfaced glistening <br />like a crystal chandelier, <br />the fish shimmering color <br />as if raised in prism-light.<br /><br />Ron Rash<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/price-lake-1961/
