A rush of wind, maybe 15 mph (?), wakes me. It’s November, the windows are open, and still, two-months-ago tomatoes cling tight to the vine. Daughter’s breath on my face and dog’s breath at my feet synchronize. The man of the house has gone to chase some snaggletooth sirens, at least they’re Wisconsin native.
My Uncle says this family lives by the water, as the tears roll slow along the rock’s edge. More and more I thank whatever stars keep us feeling the changes. It’s the women and our gray eyes, like the clouds in November.
For now, you can catch a brown in town or rainbow in the sky in Mazomanie. Just beyond the ghostland dairies, now lie beef cattle. Here today, gone tomorrow. Just waiting for those big computers to show up on our doorstep with their tins of caviar and champagne on a particularly shitty Sunday. Spouting in tongues, wrapping their sick fuck fingers around our already cinched waists.
Everyone needs a secret spot that you utter no sensibilities about. The folks who haven’t found theirs yet – there’s no hum about ’em. They don’t catch a thing, and if they do it’s all luck and no thanks. Every catch requires a sacrifice. Stoke the fire, take a charcoal bit and brandish your ceremonial stripes. Then gut a piece of yourself and bury it in the riverbed.
In the beginning, it’s all about making good trouble, getting your lines wet, feeding the oxytocin before sunrise. Nothing hits harder then a muskellunge rounding the lower left on the 8. But somewhere along the way, it gets lost in translation – as most innocence does. Suddenly we’re all jiving for more, sooner, and feeding on scraps to keep the engine alive.
Last year, the creek blew out. You could feel the 2018 PTSD in the air, in neighbors faces, and decisions to sell, sell, sell. The fish didn’t bat an eye. Last year, my creek blew out, and all the years before that, and still my veins run straight to Old Wisconsin.
A Homegoing 