retirement guide for the largemouth bass

on mobile? turn phone sideways!

White River dons a thin coat 
of ice, water traveling beneath like a snake
shedding its bubbled skin. Do you think fish,

with their overconfident scale-mail and rolling marble
eyes, know that at the end of their slippery road
there’s just more water? Oceans of the stuff really. 

Or do they think once they’ve flowed through 
their final rivulet, each tributary spread out like 
one of many lashing tentacles, there is an end to all this

liquid? A place where they can stand on their own
two fins without fear of slashing bear paw or
deceitful fly lure, and spend their remaining days

whittling roe figurines out of soft pine and
saying remember when about their old swimmin’ 
hole, big as some spiraling galaxy.