Episode 2 - Into Soft Memories with Michael Kleber-Diggs

Sure.

So this is a poem called "Prestidigitation," which I first started working on when we were in the Givens Fellowship.

Prestidigitation.

On a day too hot for clouds, wind, or eight-year-olds, our grandfather took my brother and me fishing at an overstocked pond just outside Wichita.

We rode in a row in his green and white Chevy truck, three on a tree.

Our dad was gone now, unmade instantly by a man with his finger on a trigger.

Grandfather was knighted our surrogate.

I remember his massive hands so sure at the wheel, each round knuckle witness to his life of labor.

My grandfather's name was Arthur, and he talked all the time about his arthritis, but pronounced it arthitis.

So for months, I thought it was a condition unique to him, that he had his own special burden, just like my brother and me.

I remember the truck's cabin engulfed by his musk, his aftershave with hints of cedarwood and tonka, his brandy breath, Prince Albert fuming perpetually from his pipe.

Eventually, we arrived at a catfish farm, shadeless and stark.

We walked to a shed and found a man about my grandfather's age, his face red like a traffic light.

We bought bait and tackle and showed our backs to the sun.

We set our hooks and casted our lines, casted our lines.

In time, I had landed one.

Your reel motion stops when you catch on a catfish.

You think you're snagged.

The fish was bigger than I imagined and stronger.

I brought it in on my own, but couldn't get my small hands on it.

I was afraid, so I watched Grandfather disregard its barbels and free it from the hook with casual ease, his hands calloused and rough, impervious to whips and stings.

I understood someday I would need to be like that too.

Between the three of us, we caught eight fish that day, eight good catfish.

We were there an hour or two.

Brother and I knew enough not to complain about the heat, but this was an early lesson, and this was a time for grace.

Sure.

So this is a poem called "Prestidigitation," which I first started working on when we were in the Givens Fellowship.

Prestidigitation.

On a day too hot for clouds, wind, or eight-year-olds, our grandfather took my brother and me fishing at an overstocked pond just outside Wichita.

We rode in a row in his green and white Chevy truck, three on a tree.

Our dad was gone now, unmade instantly by a man with his finger on a trigger.

Grandfather was knighted our surrogate.

I remember his massive hands so sure at the wheel, each round knuckle witness to his life of labor.

My grandfather's name was Arthur, and he talked all the time about his arthritis, but pronounced it arthitis.

So for months, I thought it was a condition unique to him, that he had his own special burden, just like my brother and me.

I remember the truck's cabin engulfed by his musk, his aftershave with hints of cedarwood and tonka, his brandy breath, Prince Albert fuming perpetually from his pipe.

Eventually, we arrived at a catfish farm, shadeless and stark.

We walked to a shed and found a man about my grandfather's age, his face red like a traffic light.

We bought bait and tackle and showed our backs to the sun.

We set our hooks and casted our lines, casted our lines.

In time, I had landed one.

Your reel motion stops when you catch on a catfish.

You think you're snagged.

The fish was bigger than I imagined and stronger.

I brought it in on my own, but couldn't get my small hands on it.

I was afraid, so I watched Grandfather disregard its barbels and free it from the hook with casual ease, his hands calloused and rough, impervious to whips and stings.

I understood someday I would need to be like that too.

Between the three of us, we caught eight fish that day, eight good catfish.

We were there an hour or two.

Brother and I knew enough not to complain about the heat, but this was an early lesson, and this was a time for grace.