Pay By The Inch Poem by Raymond Farrell

At the entrance
What remained of the sign
That had not been
Blown away by the wind
Read
Pay By The Inch
Prompting
My father in law
To make
A number of
Off-color remarks
About what might be awaiting us
At the end
Of the dirt lane
That meandered nonchalantly
Through a quiet meadow
Of wildflowers
In full bloom
We'd been trying our luck
Since early morning
At Round Lake
Hoping to hook a trout
But by midafternoon
We'd been skunked
So rather than go home
Without a fish
We decided
To try this commercial operation
Where they had ponds
Full of fish
"Easy and Ready to be Caught"
It all went as promised
In an hour flat
We had plenty of trout
Paid for by the inch
And we were heading home
Fishin' was never so easy
If you can really call it fishin'.