Memories diffuse,
like sunbeams glint off a lake,
become phenomena, evade the tangible.
In unsteady light I see my father
rowing toward our favorite fishing cove,
the wavelets of our wake
real as that late August evening.

We bait our hooks, conversation
merely phatic communion\ I know he's cheating on Mom.
Words anchor heavy.
As my face turns into the wind
to dry tears without his seeing,
questions rise in my throat,
like a volcano about to erupt,
but I have no voice to ask them.

So we sit, dangle mono-filament
thoughts in dying twilight.
Father and son,
brooding statues of Buddha,
mute as bullhead on the bottom.