January: We were never on thin ice
fishing; it was Indiana winter.
We wore the gloom and cool on our faces,
lake pale blue and hard, the left-behind holes
ankle breakers if you missed the boot prints
going to or from, or the broken lines
and gold barbed hooks the sun sometimes shined on.
I carried the rusted auger over
the water in one wool mitt, short steel rod
in the other, brother lagging behind,
father quarter mile ahead, looking out
listening for cracks, bouncing up and down,
hand up, till it was safe to go on & drill.
We’d lean over that one fish hole for hours,
praying some fish would swim toward the light,
our hunger—insatiable in winter.
Robert E. Ray
Robert E. Ray is an American retired public servant. His poetry has been published by Rattle, The Ekphrastic Review, The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press, Wild Roof Journal, High Shelf Press, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine. Robert is a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University. He lives in rural southeast Georgia.
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