Barry Marks

Lay Lake

How John and I are fishing,

despite everything.

Because of everything.

How you find bass

where the shore and the weeds

and a fallen log make structure,

not out in the open water.

How John has caught a bass

and I have not.

There is so much I would show you.

How the mist glides over Lay Lake

and two men,

the men who loved you,

the men who failed you,

sit in their little boat, one talking,

the other silent within himself.

How this lake is bound

by shores, by trees,

by land that is bound

only by the sky and the sky

and the sky.