Late, My Brother Tells Me

I’m standing on a dais, at a microphone
when my brother makes a comment back
at me—“Dad was never a fly fisherman.”

Father the omnipotent knew how to crack
open a coconut, showed us his knack for packing rock salt
in the machine before we cranked the handle for ice cream.

Gather some branches or sticks, crafting a splint
for a broken arm or leg. Lash together some boughs,
making a litter for dragging a hiker out of the evergreen woods.

It works best if you hook a worm in two places,
securing the bait, or jab a silver herring, if at hand,
and here’s how you crimp a line, attach lead weight.

He taught us to tuck the firecracker, lit,
under a tuna fish can, standing back, then
how approaching a dud, you can douse it with water.

Bend down, lacing up your ski boots, step toes
into the bindings, then riding the tow bar up—
it’s too steep? Use your poles to get up after a fall.

Taller than his shadow, braver than we knew,
such grief he hid from us—a lost brother. There goes
his line whipping out, a rainbow leaping for a fly.

PATRICIA CLARK

Patricia Clark is the author of O Lucky Day (Madville, 2025) and Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars (Terrapin, 2020). “What My Father Wished For,” a poem from O Lucky Day, won a Pushcart Prize and will be published in The Pushcart Prize XLX in 2026. She has recently had work published in Plume, Sheila-na-Gig, and the North American Review.