a magazine for anglers
by Henry Hughes
The steelhead swallowed
the last flash of day—
head-shake, leap, and a fifty-foot peel
that raised the moon
in my reel. No one was there.
No camera. Just ten minutes,
a shaky net, and an un-scaled
silver wild weight.
Bloody fur and tinsel,
twist and thump. Squeeze and flashlight fumble.
The rusty needle nose
deep in the syrupy throat.
I would eat this fish,
but the law says
let it go and die.
Gills puffing red,
I open my hands to a sharp bolt
and flutter float, twenty feet away.
At camp, down river, a woman
strikes a lantern, puts on a jacket, and checks her watch.
There’s a great slap
on the water’s face
she marks and forgets,
wondering why he’s late
getting back.
Henry Hughes grew up on Long Island, New York and he now lives on the Luckiamute River in Oregon. His first collection of poems, Men Holding Eggs, received the 2004 Oregon Book Award. His second book, Moist Meridian, was chosen by Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the 2011 Oregon Book Award. He is the editor of the anthology, The Art of Angling: Poems about Fishing (Knopf, 2011) and his commentary on new poetry appears regularly in Harvard Review.
