Chub Poem by Neil Leadbeater

Some days you hope for chub
but the fish in their chub-holes
just won't bite -
their presence simply eludes you.
Deception on a scale like this
deprives you of your silver lining:
the heaving, dark-green, moss-green backs
in the middle reaches of Wye
and Severn
merging into evening.
Their coy diffidence
gets the better of you.
How to draw them out
is your big puzzlement
just as it is
with distance and absence -
you wonder how to close the gap
that has somehow come
between you.