In thigh-deep water we lashed the air with our rods
and re-examined the eternal questions: tongue, eye, nose—

which one has the shortest route to the brain, the heart:
which nails would you release first if it were given to you,

the feet or the hands: if Chickamauga meant river of the dead
then what were the implications for all bodies of water?

He filled the sink with the trout who hit our lines,
crossed himself once, twice, then renamed and cut each one

—their vague eyes rolling—while I made ready to gently knuckle
each flayed beloved with garlic and thyme, an American John

to his American Jesus, humming my crazy songs
over the black faces of the pans I baptized in butter.

“The dead will only suffer butter,” he liked to say,
as I dropped a shoulder and tumbled each head into a basket

for the tabby in the woods who never failed to pick up
the scent of resurrection in our mouths, who would chirp

and follow us even unto the shaky outhouses where we rocked
and returned the dead to the earth from where they came.