Fishing with the Ghosts of Winter.

   after Russell Banks

   The man enters his tiny house
   On the ice, carrying
   His buckets of bait, gin, and coal.

   The cove's darkness, the cold fit him
   Like the bob-house fits him,
   Like the snowdrifts fit the bob-house.

   The wind tries but cannot get its
   Cold wire around the door.
   The drop line lightly in his hand,

   He sits on a bench in the dark.
   The holes glow faintly green
   Between his feet, and he sees weeds

   Waving in the water and fish
   Like stray thoughts passing back
   And forth, more shadow than bluegill,

   As the dawn filters through the ice.
   He does not move except
   To tip the gin into his mouth.

   Later he will maybe make tea.
   The minnows glitter by.
   He looks and looks. The world dies down.

   Outside, the sunlight strikes the pine,
   Then the little house moored
   On the ice. He sits on the bench

   In the cold dark, free of the earth,
   Doing one of the things
   On the long list of things to do.