(a)
Faced with a choice of lures
in the bait-and-tackle shop, I was forced
to rely on visual composition. In the absence
of any fishing experience, it became
a kind of Rorschach test. I chose
spinner pattern 208, meaning I chose a tool for
dark days or waters where the forage base was
crayfish and other dark species.
The literature said the fish would bite. To achieve this
required a lot of subterfuge. Each cast
had a plink that started a lure spinning
and blinking under the surface. Down there,
it must have looked like a beacon, but
this is a trompe l’oeil.
Sometimes I get the urge to scream warnings
at the fish as I reel them in.
I never want to be the one to pull the heart out
and watch it beat its final struggle on the granite rock
but when someone else does I am happy to sit and watch.
The lake becomes a doctored environment.
When the fish get wise, we’ll think of something else.
Philosophy warns that it’s important
to establish a basis for distinguishing
between persons, or between processes, in
classical demon-worlds. The ducks are really tragic.
They look at decoys and think
they’ve actually found someone else.