[false] beacons

by Elizabeth Bates

Late summer on the Skagit: the first fallen 

maple tree leaves impress

ripples into the river the way early spring 

water skeeters did. Tracing the path 

of the leaf underwater, the salmon mistakes 

it for a bug.

Late summer in the Edison Slough: a Blue Heron dips its beak 

& it surfaces, 

muddy. The fish slips away from the shallows

masqueraded in depth. In estuary waters

a fisherman snags, reels in what turns out to be 

a torn line: hook & split shot weights lost in battle

with an underwater log. 

His wife leans in to pat him on the back, to 

commiserate him on the one that got away,

but he snags a kiss

misreading the meaning of her gesture.

Elizabeth Bates is a Best of the Net and Pushcart-nominated writer living in Washington state with her family. She is the author of poetry chapbook, Mosaics & Mirages (Fahmidan Publishing & Co., 2022). Twitter: @ElizabethKBates