A couple hours of daylight remained
as we navigated dusty Kiowa County roads.
Our destination: a tree lined, stream-fed fishing lake
with a scatter of pools and ponds.
Rod and reel in hand, I tagged along
or, rather, was led to one small pool in particular.
For bait, leftover corn from the supper table.
At this shade-choked spot nearly blind to the face of a west sun
I baited my hook as instructed and, from experience,
trusted to luck.
But, no time at all had passed when they struck.
Again, again and again. Those carp. Catch. Release.
Catch another. Combative. One broke my line.
Demonstrative as born-again mosquitoes.
~ Robert Cory
Robert Cory: Born in Missouri, Robert Cory was raised, schooled and has worked in Kansas most of his life. Dependably wearing out shoe leather, tires, molars and ego trips. His most recent work has appeared. He’s been writing poetry since age fourteen, plays since 1968.
Thomas Reynolds is an associate English professor at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, and has published poems in various print and online journals, including New Delta Review, Alabama Literary Review, Aethlon-The Journal of Sport Literature, Sport Literate, The MacGuffin, Flint Hills Review, and Prairie Poetry. Woodley Press of Washburn University published his poetry collection Ghost Town Almanac in 2008. His chapbook The Kansas Hermit Poems was published in 2013. His work has received two Pushcart Prize nominations.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 