Stubborn blueberries cling wild,
low-blue in bushy clumps
clutching for purpose on hardtack sand
along the Fox, which Ernest
Black-Hearted Hemingway
called the Big Two-Hearted
an act of disinformation,
misdirection under the rubric of art,
poetic license? I say bull,
his only thought: Himself.
The bastard.
I hear the great ghost
grunting in the horsetail ferns
above the weedy log slide,
annoyed to find me
casting in the oxbow
of his dearest hoax,
flicking an elk hair caddis
at the same pool
Nick Adams worked so artificially.
Two hours, thirteen fat fish,
I climbed the bank to find
a huge bear, teddy-sitting
splay-legged in the berries,
his graying snout contorted,
clawing clumps of blue,
a hunched curmudgeon
clack-smacking his yellow teeth in warning,
raises a paw:
a salute I recognize!
In Havana long ago
one of Mary’s canasta cronies
sandal-footed into the black marble foyer
taking her leave slowly,
spies a white-bearded thing
in ratty flannel robe, padding
bearfootfrom a stucco room,
stop, stare, blink, breathe.
Says Mary, "My friend Julia, on her way out."
It grunts, raises a huge paw,
waddles on, agonizing over
brook trout far north
left unprotected,
covered only by legend
and a flimsy one at that.
You can’t fool me, Hem,
reincarnating your selfish self
in that shaggy black hide, filling
your selfish mush with huckleberries,
a nasty excuse to guard your secret.
I’m here, you old bastard,
Taking your fish.
Where’s your bravado now?
RWOL
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