Nigel McLoughlin

Epicedium

At four years old I’d turn up and stand and watch the line

shoot, a yard at a time, into a perfect circle in the box

how you’d lash hooks with finger twists too quick to be a knot

or when you sat, a cross-legged magician, mending nets

all wrists and teeth that somehow missed the flying needle.

I’d let fly with a head-full of questions. You’d answer

with a wink and nod to Ned or Paul and I’d believe you

for I knew you knew all the green secrets of the fish

every cold vector of the lough, the shallows and the depths

where all the black eels hid and the hook-jawed, monstrous pike.

Always, you’d take me in and guide my hand slowly through

the making of a knot, again and again, until I’d get it right

or show me how to patch a broken net before you’d go.

and I’d watch you all down the road, making for the lough

where I knew your boat was waiting and ready for the water.