white bass run

this poem smells like the river
where we stood that night watching
the small pale bellies of doomed fish

reflect the moon just beneath the surface
like strings of unending light transmitting code.

my brother stood on a small raft of bobbing aspen logs
casting his line into the darkness over and over,

and as the mushrooms kicked in strings of thick smog
fell down like god's drapes closing for good,
guiding our souls back home for one last stern lecture.

a couple hours before dawn we heard a small bell
tinkling pagoda-like at the end of the pier
where a father and his middle-aged son landed

an illegal sturgeon, a veritable dinosaur with gills and asian whiskers.
it would've been the devil if not for the blind gray eyes

and when the father released it back into the river
it slid like a silent comma down again into its lightless cold tomb.

we staggered into the cabin toward our beds,
terrified of dreaming dreams of sunshine, love, and easy failure.

                                                     --for John