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Keith Polette

Fishing with Grandfather

Though he was not long in your life, you always thought his hair was wizard-white and that when you got to be his age — which had to be 400 years old — you hoped yours would be like his: thick with the ways of knowing, unflappable in any breeze. In the rowboat that morning, moored at the wooden dock, you expected him to teach you the particulars of fishing: how to use spinner bait, how to pull a top-water lure in a slow tease to taunt bass, when to switch to the rubber worm, and where to cast to haul in a lunker. Instead, he opened a bag of chewing tobacco, said this is what his grandfather had taught him, and motioned for you to grab a handful, put it into your mouth and lodge it behind your lower left teeth. For the next hour, with a packed and swollen cheek, you sat with him and watched the sunrise. In the growing light, you slowly learned the ways of ruminating: how to chew and spit. 

genealogy
salmon surging toward
the sites of their fathers

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About the Author

Keith Polette lives in El Paso, Texas. He is the author of a book of haiku, The New World, and a book of haibun, Pilgrimage, both published by Red Moon Press.