artwork: lucha (marie skrobot)
Bait Shop
by Jude
Genereaux
You know that smell the minute
you walk in
know you’ve
been there
reached back
and arrived again
The old bait
shop, milk & bread store
at the four
corners by the water.
Could be up
there at Walloon Lake
Old Hem hung
out on his way
north to the
Big Two Hearted or the
one in Baileys
on the harbor
- any hundred
others on the Brule, the U.P.
Up North
Wisconsin, Michigan
smells the
same
and you’re 10
again
waiting for
Dad to take you out in that old row boat
one with the
slats in the bottom, sloshing water
a can of worms
in your hand
waiting at
Uncle Hank’s dock
morning mist
steaming off Horsehead
Lake
The cheap
wooden screen door Bang!
slams behind
you
bakery wrapped
in cellophane,
bags of chips
& donuts beckon.
“Indian”
souvenirs - birch bark canoes &
sweetgrass
baskets, an ice chest full of soda pop, all
For Sale
and the
over-riding scent of old wood, damp
musty
closed-for-the-winter stored stuff & mildew
overpowers all
else
as you walk
back through the door
to summers
gone and memories
of when you
were ten.
~ first
published in the Wisconsin Poets’
Calendar
