Where we stood scared across the highway
from the drawn-down lake, my friend
had seen ghosts stepping out of firs. “Bad place
to camp,” you’d said. Told us it was my fly rod
that made you pull over. “Those cliffs are where
all the kids jumped to escape. In the old time. When
that lake was still a river.” New little fires on the ends
of cedars, you said your son was a fly-fisher, too. The world’s
best: once, on a road-trip in the desert, you stopped
so he could cast for a while. There was a pothole, just a puddle;
he put a fly there and a trout rose. Down through Concrete
where cottonwood leaves unfurled and the world
was the scent of their sap; I loved you, then. Either your car
was too small or we took up so much space: my friend
in his bandana taking pictures of everything, me with all
my questions about catching trout. You bought us energy drinks,
raspberry scones. Bought your girlfriend’s brother
a long jeweled bowie you knew he would love. Posed with us
at the wayside swap-meet, you in your bear-claw necklace squeezing
a stuffed Tasmanian Devil, our arms over your shoulders.
I still remember where you pulled off the highway, said “you’re not
in America any more,” and walked out of sight to your people’s
cemetery to visit your son. Remember, years later, I messaged:
“I’m one of those teenagers you picked up hitchhiking.” How
you responded, “My goodness, is all well?” Salmonberry blossoms
like votives and that river’s black lid where you told me to cast:
I drive there every now and then. I’m just now writing back.

Photo by Hunter Brumels on Unsplash