How to Go Fishing

(for Alasdair)

Catherine Bateson

You must be thirteen again, a speckling of
blackheads across your nose.

You must be awkwardly angular
with a belly as soft as a trout's.

You must talk river, bone
and star.

You must be silent about love
and all deep places.

You must follow your shadow
humming no recognisable song.

You must be prepared
for nothing.

You must always be able to swing home
empty-handed but for the sun under your
fingernails.