For my son Jack

I wake to the thrum and the iron smell
of rain. Beyond the window, the lawn,
the shrubs, and all the scrubby humps
of central North America are gone.

It is South Devon and the Kingsbridge River,
the water nailed with rain, the burned-out
hulls of wrecks groaning as the slack tide
makes its move. I have spent the whole night
trolling for bass, the rain at the window
muttering, "One more run. This time.
This time a strike." You, my last child,
are speaking in your sleep, "Ah. Ah."

I smell the rain and look up to my father,
leaning on the tiller, edging the boat
in its slow circle. His right hand holds the rod wide,
his finger hooked on the line, in touch with the bait,
nosing through the quiet below the rain.
The rain has the smell of the in-board,
hot, oily, the exhaust popping, the smell
of the baitbox. Tight in my fist
the sand-eels jerk their locked mouths
away from the hook. "Put another snig on,"
my father says, reeling in. "I think this one's
tired. Doing no work down there."

I sort the dead from the living and throw
the darker ones, the tired ones, to the herring-gulls
frantic in our gasoline-stained wake. We ease
in to the hulk grounded close to shore, bogged
in the black rain-tattered water. "This time,"
he says, nudging the throttle to fight
the gathering ebb. There are conger down there,
dog faced, wide eyed, wedged in crannies.

There are conger in most dreams, Jack.
They can take the hook and not budge and you think
the line's fouled and you're going to cut
but there's a trembling, saying it isn't weed
or scrap iron but a living mouth,
and you work to keep at least the memory
of fear as the gusts pummel the bedroom window.
But it is the bass we are after. And when
the tide begins to peel from the mudbanks,
it is my father that I want to keep from going back
without me into that wilderness of wrecks.
"Let's call it a day," he says and starts to wind.
I hear you stir, Jack. Now the rain is pelting
through all Missouri. On the Kingsbridge River,
where the bass grow rarer and more wary year by year,
the time is winding in. Our two reels mutter
Then his hand jerks up. The line is tight,
ripping the water. "By God," he says,
kneeing the motor out of gear. "I'm into one!"
A bass? Watching his rain-slick hands
working the reel, keeping the bent rod high,
I have no need to ask. I hold the net and wait.

But he is gone. We both cry when we wake, Jack,
though I less loud and less appeasable.
No fish this time. Only the rain is real.