A Poem for Fishing Season

Hooks

I loved the slick alphabet of bait. Catalpa worms,
yellow with black spurs, clinging
to broad leaves

until I knocked them down with cane poles.

Sometimes,
I'd flood the yard at dusk, trick crawlers
up through the dirt.

And the leopard frogs--lime-green & brown-spotted
that squirted through wet grass.

I kept those I caught in a coffee can on the porch; it beat
like a drum at night

as they shot against the lid.

I fished in beautiful places, but it's the baiting
I remember--
piercing a hook through the white petal
of each frog's throat, working it up
& out the beak-nose
quick, with a stitching motion; croaks rising
to chirps, & the pressure
of small fingers pushing against the freight of my grip.

I want to say a frog's just a frog.
But that sound,
the cruel pop of barb through skin ...