The White Trout

  -for Kirby Benson

Stories drift down

about a lost species of white trout

above Englishman River Falls

where we camped,

me bragging of salmon

more than thirty feet long discovered

in a remote part of China.

“Stars are the assholes of dead presidents!” you announce.

But you live where the birds go, my friend,

far south of Crown Royal and rain.

“Therapy is staring into water and hoping,” I reply.

With five wives abandoned on the trail behind us,

we talk of sex with deities. Green wavelengths of pleasure flow

from moss and ferns. Silence, between friends,

means God’s in no hurry.

Often, I admit, my shadow seems more like a person than me.

I dated a woman who rode killer whales for a living, in Victoria.

What man could compare? I heard she married a pile buck from Seattle.

“A guy born with his collar turned up,” you observe.

The holding water of memories

holds the white trout

in deep pools,

log-sized and wise as deer.

Ghosts with eyes, we climb higher and higher.