State of Being
Rusted mesh metal roped to the dock -- the bait
box held a catfish caught in the neighbor's mucky
rowboat harbor. What happened that day, I have to ask --
when Uncle Ray dumped catch from his creel into the box
as we all watched -- that catfish became the catch word
for oddity, attached like an inside pocket to Ray, sly angler,
me, the rapt one with bamboo pole, bait and watery line,
longing for his favor. Years later Ray taught French,
Spanish, and Russian grammar, moved to Uruguay
to find a perfect democracy, drank, recovered, wrote
a book on functions of the verb to be -- and shot himself
at the age I am now. So, though you may not
always see it in my eyes, I am in a watery deep –
the hook of him, the worm of what happened.
Lynne Potts
