“Investment” first appeared in Slant.
Varnished with a luminous shellac, the best of the blond
tackle boxes opened to trays and rows of lures.
Here the iridescent plugs for bass, there flies and spinners,
trolling spoons for salmon, steelhead, rainbow
and sea-run cutthroat trout. They meant for you,
Father, what art or coin collections mean for other men,
those luxury cars they acquire so they can say,
This is who I am. Is it too much a leap
to regard those lures as portals to the closed
off rooms you tended, tarot cards of the secret
inner man? I never told you how I loved
the leather-handled grip when I hoisted a heavy
box, nor how its weight matched the burden
you bestowed the way rime, then ice slowly
suffocate a tall ship’s rigging. How long it takes
a reefed sail to unfurl on its own, then stretch
its canvas frame, stiffened by disuse
into a gelid slumber, remains as well the rainbow’s
tale. Suspended for months like an emulsion
claimed by winter, it stirs with the melt,
it begins to barrel toward the fly.