Lake Patoka

The moon that shined so brightly just after dusk
has left Lake Patoka to the dim starlike lights
of the bass fishermen, the howling hounds, and the flopping of fish
in the cricket- and cicada-filled cloudy night.
The treeline paints the background black
as white buoys bob up-and-down,
an ongoing headnod in the midst of sparkling ripples.

A man steps off his fishing boat onto the dark dock
that is my writing studio for this evening,
shooting his spotlight onto the wooden planks
and into my field of vision. “Sorry, I didn’t mean
to blind ya,” the bass-man says. “I figured
this is what you were looking for,” I answer,
squinting and tapping the surface of the dock
with the palm of my hand, shaking the white dots
out of my head. Then he leaves me with the water
and my words and the concrete ramp guides his boat
out of the lake. Then crickcada-filled silence.

I rub my weary eyes and look to the sky for moon and stars,
finding only the fierce sting of deet, and the water is still.

Then there are footsteps—strong, hard footsteps
running at me from the water and from the shore,
pounding against the planks of the dock,
shaking the wooden jut back and forth.
Frightened and frantic, I grab the battery-powered
lantern and jump up, searching for my loud intruder.
The dock is clear, but still rocking
with the stomping steps. It must be a ghost,
my intellect screams—my lungs heaving, my heart racing.

My panic subsides as I turn toward the water to find
that waves from the wakes of the bassmen
had invaded my workspace, and my dock rocked
to the series of ripples at first invisible to my creative eye.
The movement soon subsides and a tall dock lamp lights the way
as a truck pulls another high-dollar boat up the concrete ramp,
getting ready for tomorrow’s tournament
as the oil- and gas- tainted water sits
immaculately still like an innocent inmate
in the crickcada-filled silent night.

by Ryan Wilcox