Fishtails

      - for my father, who fishes -

you were no less the

     truth than a fisherman’s tale -

             hypothetical

fish pulled from the creel!

     a defiled phylactery

             kept your hook and reel -

the exceptional

     hound with his snout to the trail,

             proud olfactory

put to bush and barb,

     the maledictory woof

             at the scent of carp -

you took him fishing

     in the brush, you crazy man!

             and then you sauteed

them in Mom’s bedpan

     after gutting the fish with a

             quill-feathered pen -

with each new cast you

     invoked, as was your habit,

             a tarpit muse - the

chuckling B’rer Rabbit!

     …you who jest, oh how I could

             have believed you then -

with your tales told tall

     in a tell-tale grin, no more

             and no less the truth

than a mermaid’s fin…

     and the inching earth-worm arched

             his red-plucked plumage