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Line by Nicholas Molbert

November 6, 2023
Reading Time: 1 Minutes
I am eight again,
alone with nobody
 
but my father
and a dinner’s-worth
 
of trout stiff-
spined in the ice chest.
 
Beside them are bottles
of Powerade which stain
 
my mouth red as the hands
of the son he wanted.
 
We thread hooks
and knot them impossibly
 
with translucent line. We are
tethered by the barely visible.
 
We wade, buoyed
on opposite ends of the boat.
 
There, I break the quiet.
I will learn to apologize.
Free Verse
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The Weekly

Molbert, Nicholas
Originally from Louisiana's Gulf Coast, Nicholas now lives and writes in Cincinnati. He is the author of two chapbooks from Foundlings Press: Goodness Gracious (2019) and the forthcoming Cocodrie Elegy. You can find his work in publications such as Birmingham Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, DIAGRAM, Mississippi Review, Missouri Review, Ninth Letter, and Pleiades among others.

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