Elegy
–Natasha Trethewey

For my father

I think by now the river must be thick

        with salmon. Late August, I imagine it

as it was that morning: drizzle needling

        the surface, mist at the banks like a net

settling around us — everything damp

        and shining. That morning, awkward

and heavy in our hip waders, we stalked

        into the current and found our places —

you upstream a few yards and out

        far deeper. You must remember how

the river seeped in over your boots

        and you grew heavier with that defeat.

All day I kept turning to watch you, how

        first you mimed our guide’s casting

then cast your invisible line, slicing the sky

        between us; and later, rod in hand, how

you tried — again and again — to find

        that perfect arc, flight of an insect

skimming the river’s surface. Perhaps

        you recall I cast my line and reeled in

two small trout we could not keep.

        Because I had to release them, I confess,

I thought about the past — working

        the hooks loose, the fish writhing

in my hands, each one slipping away

        before I could let go. I can tell you now

that I tried to take it all in, record it

        for an elegy I’d write — one day —

when the time came. Your daughter,

        I was that ruthless. What does it matter

if I tell you I learned to be? You kept casting

        your line, and when it did not come back

empty, it was tangled with mine. Some nights,

        dreaming, I step again into the small boat

that carried us out and watch the bank receding —

        my back to where I know we are headed.

Photo by Tim Foster on Unsplash