Afterlife

I wake to leafless vines and muddy fields, patches of standing water. His pocketknife waits in my dresser drawer, still able to gut fish. I pick up his green shirt, put it on for the fourth day in a row. Outside, the rusty nail he hammered catches me, leaves its stain on everything. The temperature drops, the whole shore filling with him: his dented chew can, waders, the cattails kinked, bowing their distress. At the pier, I use his old pliers to ready the line: fatheads, darters, a blood worm jig. Today, the lake’s one truth is hardness. When the trout bite, I pull the serviceable things glistening into air.