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Off Shore
After sinking dad into the ground
I began flunking biology
obliging my motoring out
each year
beyond jetties and onto green water
to measure turbidity and
cast treble-hooked bait to screaming gulls
flying them
like erratic kites
reeling in memories
of their graceful glides gone
tangled and pinwheeling
down translucent strains of line
dropped from a pier filled with elbowing men and boys
and dad
hoping for halibut or bass or mackerel
with his grappling hooks breaking up mussel clumps and
his baskets straining out crab
and time
to stay all night with me
running wild
up and down a thinning line of killers
or hunkering down in a damp sleeping bag
with the glint of pier lights winking
from slime glued scales
on rails, benches, forearms and
pop bottles
when I stood nose high to sinks
where goo was pulled from meat
and flung out and down
into the rolling swell of the dark
robust waves rushing to a rumbling past
of vibrated timbers and then mist
gone to halos
over lamp posts
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