Brent Goodman

No Motors Allowed

I thought I knew everything about Perch Lake. A large pond with a gravel launch really, three docks interrupting the entire wooded shoreline, a cold narrow inlet disappearing into pines. For an entire summer, every evening after work, I explored that secluded calm, gliding my evergreen kayak across the mirrored water, paddles swirling cottonwood fluff into whirlpools, my body mostly boat. Casting for largemouth suspended among the submerged structures. So when a coworker who knew the area better asked, “Have you found the lake behind the lake?” I guessed his question was a meditation. “Follow the stream,” he said.

dragonfly eye –
which me do you see
this year?