Your dead father dogs you
like the white mutt that roams
along the fishing holes and walks
the edge of gravel roads, sometimes
at a trot, most times slow,
but with purpose, muscle and sinew
protecting old bones. The father
in silence with pipe clenched
between his teeth made a fog
of every place he inhabited.
What did he understand
of you, late arrived child,
when he hoped the burdens
of fatherhood were done?
The white dog looks deep
within you, his eyes the blue
of your father’s favorite Rapala.
You take his poles, his tackle box
pulled shut with an old belt
and sit at the shore. You cast
and try to think past what you
harbor in you—the strange
alchemy of love and duty,
and the anger that rises from it,
thick as the dog’s hackles
when it senses something
hidden in the lake’s fog.
