Admit Possession to Rent

By Tod Marshall

We stopped at a farmer’s house

before parking at the dock

that creaked over the river.

Rowboats for rent, five bucks

an hour, twenty for the day.

Deep water: I knew a canvas bag

was in the trunk. I knew lunch

would be roast beef sandwiches

and hot stew from a thermos,

chunks of carrot and potatoes

cut by my mother who slept

through the racket of our leaving.

While my father paid, I loaded

the boat with our poles

and tackle boxes, lead sinkers

shaped like grey pears, raincoats

and a case of beer. I was ten

and I knew my dad would toss

that canvas bag into the aluminum

boat with a thunk. We fish for gar

with kittens, he’d yelled last night

at my mother, and that was that.

The rowboat slid from the dock,

the occasional clunk of the first

six-pack clipped on the fish stringer,

and I knew that I should take my time

fastening the wire leader

to the brass swivel, tying on

those massive sinkers. I knew

that the six-inch treble hook

would tremble in my hands,

and when I was done, I knew

what came next, a canvas bag,

stiff kittens, blood. I tore

two hooks through the side

of a calico, yanked upward with a

sharp tug to lodge the third barb

beneath the ribs. I dangled

my fingers in cold water

to wash them, then reared

the rod back into a cast that splashed

twenty feet from the boat.

He popped the third beer and finished

baiting his hook. Too deep

for an anchor, we drifted,

and far beneath, the gar cruised

back and forth, their prehistoric

snouts slicing the dark, bumping

our bait again and again

until that fierce hunger I was learning

said clamp down and take it.

Copyright Credit: Tod Marshall, "Admit Possession to Rent" from The Tangled Line. Copyright © 2009 by Tod Marshall. Reprinted by permission of Canarium Books.

Source: The Tangled Line (Canarium Books, 2009)