Robert Nisbet

Parry Fishes the Reservoir

Here, the reservoir’s draught of peace.

Away from his home’s nervous laceration,

Parry fishes into August twilights.

The dam, two miles away, is a mound of sound,

a wall of falling water,

but, from this broad reach, seems

as if graven on the dusky sky.

On the hill and in the car park,

a mile behind him, the odd motor,

purring, starting, and the babble of family,

rounded and softened by space,

losing, in evening air, the power to hurt.

All the time, within the circle of his cast,

the plop, rustle, whisper

of the line, the water.

From time to time, a fish jerks and is jerked

by Parry’s line, lies gasping on the grass.

Sometimes,

the silver beast hooked and wounded,

he will release it, slip it back.

Robert Nisbet had published seven short-story collections with Welsh publishers before one of his stories appeared in 2014 in Story II, an anthology of the best of 20^th century Welsh short fiction. He has now turned to poetry with a chapbook, Merlin’s Lane, from Prolebooks in 2011.