A Catfish Song

The queen of sage, the wiry rat dog,
guards our campsite, never relaxing,
a vigilant sentry, our patrolman of brush,
chaser of logs and chukkers,
keeping out the stranger danger
in the backyard of a Frankenstein lake.

Across the water railroad tracks lay like stitches,
crisscrossing the face of brown breasted mountains,
laying tracks for a moaning freight train, dussing*
away in nights of mosquitos at Farewell Bend.

These boys of dog, fishers of catfish, bait-
luring, with scented jigs, stinkbait, and worms,
flinging Trilene, swivel, and split-shot weights
into the dying, mudstained Brownlee Lake

The tugging and bending pole,
lugging berm-like catfish between
sunken logs and emerging rocks.
Boys and dog, belling the fish,
squirming on eight-pound test.
A #6 treble hook, toys with his hard,
thick-whiskered lip.

A death on a stringer
held high in a brown haze,
like a negative I lost long ago.
Dried up stinkbait and worm guts
mounded in a tackle box corner,
reminding me of a catfish song
I used to sing long ago.

*To run with extreme pace and speed, usually running away from a crime scene.