Its wicker wouldn’t know how
to take shellac, after 6 decades
of speckles, rainbows, browns—
their oils and writhings
soaked and woven intricately
into the weave. Your ear
to its porthole, learn the blue
ribbon rivers and creeks
recorded there—skirmish, brawl,
murmur and purl—fast rapid
to long, sweeping pool, to the hatch
and hackled seethe of beaver pond.

Learn the heart’s mad dash
stethoscopic through this basket,
diastole and systole neck and neck
with every hit and hook set firm,
every last ditch run
sirening from the drag. Pete Briskie,
mustachioed Hurley policeman,
lived in a green-shingled house,
corner of Poplar and 5th,
with wife Bernice and 4 daughters,
called me Buckshot, played
penny-a-hole crib with dad
to Friday bouts of Gillette and leather,
and once, before his cancer spread,
harnessed me—proud prince

in king’ crown—ankle deep,
for laughs and snapshots,
to this basket.

Pete and dad, tip-top
cribbage and fishing buddies,
never, I kid you not, never
in their heyday took skunk
for an answer.
                      Come here.
Open its hatch—slowly lift
open its hatch. Pay attention.
Do you hear the pother of trout,
the water and heart? Do you hear
that palaver, those whoppers
its leather hings squawks?

From The Make-Up of Ice (University of Georgia Press, 1984)
© Paul Zarzyski. All rights reserved. These words may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.