The Fly-Tyer Poem by Sonny Rainshine

For his black salmon-fly
only cat-gut imported from Nigeria
will suffice.
The veiled belly will be
a bronzed eagle-claw hook
with an eye upturned—
Pretty things.

Pretty things
are often illusory things;
the hook will be
painstakingly looped
in Christmas tinsel
which will flicker in the sun
and refract in the trout brook
when the first cast is hurled.
Finely shaped hairs
from a deer’s tail must mimic
a shimmering wing.
A hunter-comrade
saves them up for him—
calves’ tails can be used,
but they are not as magnificent.
Over the years he has learned to bind
the tuft of hair in precisely the right spot:
three-quarters, with the first segment
the head, the second the wings.
One black seed-bead
will represent the insect’s eye.

After five hours of steady work,
eyes strained and aching
he places the finished fly
with the others in his tackle box.
Rows of stunning, frozen bugs
gaze grimly back at him
with with exquisite,
murd'rous eyes.