I.
When you eat your cold soup and drink your warm beer,
keep your thoughts hard until you have swallowed,
and do not lie about this being the best meal of your life
even though you might have just fished for twelve hours
at the bottom of a deserted canyon full of fish.

Do not call every person you’ve ever fished with,
for this canyon shall remain nameless.
Verily I say to you, do not do so,
even if your friends have done the same before you.

Catch your fish only, do not interrupt someone’s Saturday night
in the city, even if the fish was the size of your leg.
Nor use text messaging.
I say again to you, do not touch your cell phone, but leave it as is.

And though, laying out in the bed of the truck,
stars overhead. And though your life does indeed resemble paradise,
make not false prayers while peeing in the sagebrush beneath
a million billion stars in the middle of the night.

And though the bed of the truck may be lonely, do not feel
sorry and do not make any quick movements as a coyote crosses
the parking lot at first light, because we do not do that, either.

Just wake early, as I have told you. Do not be afraid
to run all the way back down the trail to fish all day,
for the other side of life is a cubicle. Only once should you slide down
until you are nearly slid away, and that only for the sake
of experience. Heed me: for if you sit another part of your life away,
your eyes will grow forever sad and your teeth will fall out.

And now behold…..even as I have said, you are already on the river.

II.
For as we judge life away from the river,
the roads are either paved or the roads are made of gravel.

Saying first, if the road is paved, watch out for strip malls,
congested interstates, and casinos.

But of the long dirt road, also watch for deer, quail,
pheasants, and cows.

The rules must be followed as is:
If you have driven more than two hours and not found water,
and your tires have heated up and your suspension sags,
turn around and do not back into any trees.
For once turned around, you shall have peace.

But if you go too many miles, and a tire flattens
or the axel breaks upon a certain boulder,
or if you become stuck in snow, you shall not have peace;

and if you go the extra miles, and become stuck next to water,
you shall take a break from worry and fish for an hour.
Verily I say unto you, there will be many miles of walking
until a large truck finally winches you out.

When found, do not stand and grin like an idiot,
nor press further down this road
for all the world will know you have come down with trout fever,
which you have, and you will fall into iniquity.
And I will know, and you shall forever be haunted by fish.

Open Windows III Anthology, www.ghostroadpress.com, Award-winning anthology series from Ghost Road Press