if footsteps

otter,
fishing


if footsteps:  

but for sure they can’t be 
followed into the water

i

it was expected you’d like boats maybe more
                than you did though how is a mystery

because we never fished from boats and only
                on the edge of ponds and early on you hated that

and besides, the only bathroom toy we had                  
                was a plastic jug we called “the blue thing”

and it came home from the hospital with our father
                six weeks after Christmas.  I’m trying to

remember if you ever made it
                float pretending

or if filling it to sink was your only goal—remember
                tipping the lip of it into the shallow

water—(there wasn’t ever enough and it was
                most of the time cold and cold

you’d said don’t get rid of soap—don’t you
                feel greasy after? but anyway

remember tipping it and then turning it as full
                as it could get and taking it all the way

to the bottom and then raising it up
                water,

water was a falling fountain we saw on television
                once, Mr. Rogers I bet

we liked him the best.
               
ii

you preferred to keep yourself dry
                and on dry land even though

a bunch of your friends went out
                fishing even though

after Dad got healed enough to work
                a three-fingered hand                               

and sold some land to buy a boat
                and bait and a string of traps

and asked you to come along one day
                (but only later, when you’d been

sober a year or so) and you said ‘naw,
                I don’t much like boats’

and he said this I can hear it still:

                how come I never knew?

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