All This Fall

That brown, tailing in the tail
of these riffles, strikes my attractor,
my sick joke: black hackles
then white rubber legs and
a piece of red yarn for a butt.

Now here he is, wallowing
in the shallows, flashing his
purple and turquoise gill plates,
his golden sides, his orange
spots, his kipe of a smile.

Tourists and summer algae
thin out in water clear
as air and colder under
white mountains blued
by sky and distance.

I think I'm drunk
without a drink, here
in the dizzy spin of late
hatches, lit to a glow
in patches of afternoon sun.

No, it's not vodka goggles
that send too much
information to this feeble
excuse for a brain.
It's the shock of all this fall.