Fish

There is too much light tonight.  The full moon and Orion have conspired against me.  They march across the sky unopposed.  Advancing, the moon evaporates the nearest stars with pewter light.

Below, the landscape is blue with snow.  Pine trees stir duskily in the wind.

Too much light.

Drawn to the window, sleepless, I peer out onto the lake.  The snow is a blank slate.

I am assaulted by my own thoughts.

Dreams of fish have awakened me again.  I do not understand this.  Why fish?  For my whole life I have been dreaming fish.    

I have come to understand the lake.  The surface locked still and rigid in ice, but the water squirming mightily underneath.  And run through with rainbow trout.  Yellow perch.

I wonder, do the fish there dream of me as I dream of them?

—Mitchell Hegman