Got Away

Pretty Sure

Like any other fisherman
in a schnapps and Blue Ribbon bar
by the river,
he talks of the one he couldn’t catch -
a girl elusive as Dolly Varden trout.
He spends his pension on bourbon
and Budweiser, corners who he can,
tells of the one who broke the surface
in a silver rainbow spray
and got away,
the arc of her flight still in his eye,
the hook still in the angler’s mouth
as he watches the sidewalk stream,
praying for one more glimpse,
pretty sure she’s not a fish story
told in a bar by the river
with dull-eyed trophies on its walls.
Pretty sure she’s still in these waters.

- Ralph Murre