Old Men Fishing at Brownwood

OLD MEN FISHING AT BROWNWOOD / Walter McDonald Spitting tobacco juice on hooks, we skewer silver minnows that writhe in the light of the moon, lining our boat with bass fighting for all the line they're worth. These are the shallows, the home of the moccasins, deep mud of the turtles. Our flat boat wallows, bumps over stumps, and stalls. Slowly, slapping mosquitoes, we pole it off and glide in moonlight between branches like scarecrows. What we desire winnows the dark under logs flooded for years, in tunnels of reeds, deep pools in the shallows. We believe we will know what we need when we find it, though it may take nights on still water, for we are too old to turn back, to settle for perch in the daylight, willing to risk pneumonia or stroke, the hiss of fangs nearby on a shimmer of water. 226 ¦ The Missouri Review ...