Boston Whaler Blues

Can’t we just go fishing?
Take that drive down Route 1
with Allie’s Donuts on the way—
glazed crullers and coffee milk.
The smell of our old wood paneled
caravan uniformed in once tan interior,
carefully littered with beach sand
and remnants of youth and wet dog.
It won’t take long once we get to the cottage:
a five gallon bucket with a box of frozen squid,
the green tackle box filled with rusty hooks,
steel leaders, four ounce sinkers and
expensive lures we’ve never used.

Can’t we just go fishing?
Let’s get farmer tans and just drift
like the time we lost the propeller
and had to get towed to shore by a jet ski.
You and me on the Whaler,
our lines in the water, talking
like fathers and sons once did.
Perhaps the fish below are
immersed in the same debate:
the son wanting to leave home
to chase the bait;
the father weary,
well aware of the hooks.

You used to take a cooler of beer
that we could’ve gotten in trouble for
because I was underage.
Now, you can’t have booze on a boat anymore.
It figures that now that I can drink by age
we cannot drink on the water.
But maybe that’s why you won’t go fishing.