Poetry by Bill Brymer

Bill Brymer is a writer and photographer from Louisville, Kentucky. A Pushcart-nominated poet, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Louisville Review, Salvation South, Prairie Schooner, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Tar River Poetry, Southwest Review, Poetry South, Yearling, and other publications. His book Neighborhood Watch is scheduled for publication by Accents Publishing in early 2027.

Fishing Trip

I’m up front watching for logs, Conrad at the wheel.
In the middle seat, my daughter, bored,
no screen to occupy her wandering mind,
fiddles with the straps of her life jacket.
She wants to give names to all the minnows.
She hasn’t seen yet what we do with the hook.

A heron rises slow and prehistoric
and crosses the lake, complaining all the way.
Finger-bone stumps rise out of the water.
We tie off to one, slide a hook through a minnow —
she cries on cue—and cast our lines.

Hours. Untie, drift and cruise.
Crappie aren’t biting, or we have
the wrong bait. So we cast close to the bank
where sharp-spined bluegill typically lurk.

Still better than a good day at work,
Conrad always says, and I always laugh,
and because I’m laughing, she laughs, too.

Gray clouds move in, there’s a devil of a storm
brewing above the tree line.
It pushes a cool breeze across the lake.
Now it’s a race for the dock:
she drags her fingers through the wake.