The Night Angler

Ralph Keats

I park the car 
In the usual place
Under a willow
Where dragonflies lace
The river musk dusk

I walk to the water
Through a field of corn
Muffled in twilight
Once more reborn
By the river’s blessing

A pheasant bolts 
From the tall grass
Raw throttled cry
Rupturing the sky
Ebbing with the fading light

I think of you
When the wind stirs the reeds
And the bites are few
And memories of misdeeds
Rise like the bats to taunt me

The line snakes out
To the spot where she
Shimmies about 
The trailing weed tresses
Over moonlit gravely runs

And I am sorry

So sorry

For loving you best
When you writhed on my hook
Helpless
As my hands shook 
And the yawning net did its sly work