Speckled Trout

Water-flesh gleamed like mica: orange fins, red flankspots, a char shy as ginseng, found only in spring-flow gaps, the thin clear of faraway creeks no map could name. My cousin showed me those hidden places. I loved how we found them, the way we followed no trail, just stream-sound tangled in rhododendron, to where slow water opened a hole to slip a line in, and lift as from a well bright shadows of another world, held in my hand, their color already starting to fade.