Who could believe the matter at hand, wisp of cane, blue thread of light, a golden hook hung with blood and cast beneath the brimming sea?
Yet I waited on the magic, at end of the endless pier, grooved the pole between my toes, traced words and faces on ocean’s edge,
jabbed at pincered sandworms groveling blind in boxed seaweed, numbered the waves lifting brightly, breaking in the slatted dark below . . .
Line, cane, spine jerked tight. Nothing to reel, no strength to pull, I clung until a fish came flashing into my father’s net.
It was mine—diamond skin dripping with light, black fins wildly jagging, the whole body riven in rhythm of waves;
then suddenly hushed, mouthing its mute secret, eyes sphered and unblinking—I was his. So this is the face of the ocean.
My father took him, pole and all, and gave me another set, already triggered to the sea. This time I held more tightly, clenched
to almost nothing, eyes running up and down the descending thread, as the sun pounds, sea birds swoop, their shrill cries piercing as nails.
See this issue's cover story, which also focuses on fishing with fathers.
John Savoie teaches great books at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville.
