The Fisherman
Uncle Charlie talked about water
as if it were a book he was reading.
He told us what he saw, no,
what he found, there either
floating by his motorboat
or actually on his fishing line.
A horse's leg, two dead dogs,
a pocketbook full of money,
a sack of kittens, and then
I ran from the room.
The Scioto River became
a story full of riddles.
He tipped his glass and the neck
of the beer bottle together
as if they were talking,
he said they were necking,
and the creamy top rose
and rose to his tongue
waiting against the glass
for the overflow. Too
much
time with his dogs Jack and Ebby
taught him to lap up the head
while he smiled his wide smile.
He didn't keep secrets, did not
even try, the way we did.
After my horse show he wanted
to know why I slumped
the minute the judges appeared
and at swim meets why I dove
deep off the side of the pool.
He said that I swallowed up
luck. He'd learned
from watching
I didn't want to win. No other grownup
talked to me like that.
Judith Bowles is
Ohio-born, Duke-educated, New York-leavened, and Washingtonian by nature.
She earned her MFA from American University in short fiction where she has
taught creative writing. She writes after having taken a sabbatical from
writing during eight years in Philadelphia where she studied horticulture.
