Gifts

"Come fishing," he'd say.

I would trot beside him

as he made his way

through deep meadow grasses

to the edge of the river.

He'd hold back the whiplash branches

like a gentleman.

Feigning interest in the muddy shore

or the sun-splashed water, I hid my tears

while the worm struggled,

imagining the hook in my own soft neck,

and when the careless fish, lured by something

improbably free, gasped in my father's hand,

I spied flowers far down the riverbank

and fled to pick them.

A bucket of worms to start,

a creel of fish to finish.

And a handful of black-eyed susans

for my mother, waiting at home,

who didn't like to see worms suffer either

and so gave me these hours with my father

as a gift.

"Home now," he'd say

and the day would coalesce in satisfaction,

fish, flowers, and father inextricably linked.