While I hide behind my book
In the physician’s waiting room,
Where you can either bait a hook
And cast your line into
The lake of conversation,
Or stay lost in any story
But of her sickness.
I lower the book and tell
Of how I once snagged a bale
Of hay instead of the big
Bottom-feeding catfish
We all thought I had on my hook
Back in high school, dockside
Sitting cross-legged beside my
Girlfriend’s mom, Marylin Cotton,
A nighttime fisherwoman par excellence,
Who once caught us in bed.
Published in – Delmarva Review.