The Truth about Summer Fishing Trips
by Michael Escoubas

Somone must tell the truth: Why not me?
Dad was, to say the least, fishing crazy.
Every summer he would load the family
into his green rusted-out Dodge pickup.
Off we clattered to his favorite Wisconsin lake.

Bungalows were offered but we camped out.
Mosquitoes were big as sparrows and pines
were as tall as Paul Bunyon’s legend. Racoons
and opossums invaded our canvas tent
on a nightly basis, sending mother
to the gin bin just to make it through the night.

Mother would sigh, knowing that come twilight,
she would gut and cook the fish we caught and wash
our dirty clothes and pack the next day’s lunches,
while never letting on, not for one moment,
that she would rather be at home with her soaps.

Toward the end of our joyous getaway
I sat beside her; legs splayed in disarray,
held an ice-cold cloth to her heat-flushed neck …
she leaned against me with wonder in her eyes.



 

Return to: