Tara Ballard

Love 

An eagle lands on the crown
            of a spruce. Its bald head
                        in the sun a lamp, turned

toward the water. The men fishing cast
            their lines, you among them.
                        The river comes to your waist.

You stand in your chest waders,
            legs spread for balance,
                        boots settled on the unseen bed.  

I watch, and the eagle watches.
            I sit, cross-legged, on the dock,
                        within your line of sight. A jacket folded

beneath me, baton and net in arm’s reach,
            should you make a request.
                        The light does not lessen, will not:

Salmon arrive when there is
            no such thing as nightfall.
                        You look downriver,

where the path curves and ties back
            to ocean. You cast again. The fly,
                        the hook, almost defying law,

floats in the air before it enters. The sound
            like the smallest of stones.

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An assistant professor of English, Tara Ballard holds a PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, Poetry Northwest, Michigan Quarterly Review, North American Review, New York Quarterly, The Louisville Review and elsewhere. She is an affiliate editor for Alaska Quarterly Review and a recent fellow at The New School's Institute for Critical Social Inquiry.