A Fish Hook (Barbed)
The wardrobe is shut tight, the latch awkward
as she lifts it, up and over the rusted catch.
Her fingers touch the jacket first: wool-worn,
fraying at the seam. The arm across her shoulder
limp, loose, a useless thing. It smells of rain
and nettles – the river where he’d listened for the trout.
Reaching for his pocket feels like theft,
a spying on his river-watch. She finds the book
of coarse fish, open, where his thumb has turned
the waxy page: barbel, bleak, bream,
a litany of names, like Adam’s roll call,
stewarding new life.
.
The second pocket stabs her, a finger hooked
by metal, hiding in the feathers of the fly.
She holds it close, puzzling its form: exotic bird;
a scarlet moth; a question mark?
Lynne Caddick, originally from West Yorkshire, currently lives in a small village in Cheshire. She belongs to the Shrewsbury Stanza Group, and attends the Whitchurch Bookshrop Poetry Group and Nantwich Speakeasy.