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VISIT MINNESOTA MONTHLY ON THE WEB Online Article Index		When the boy casts the lure, it arcs high above the water, skimming the blue sky without hooking it. It's a motion his gruff-voiced grandfather taught him years ago, this casting, this keeping time with the pendulum of a fishing pole. Our son knows this old Hula Popper lure isn't perfect. Plug-shaped, its red and yellow enamel is chipped, and black spots dot its back in an uneven pattern, as though painted by some trembling hand. But he casts and casts it anyway, hoping the lake will dream a fish to bite on it. He stands on shore waiting, certain that lure will catch something, something bigger than he ever imagined. Ten years ago, before he passed away, Grandpa left our son with memories of those huge salmon from Lake Michigan. He had hooked them on black and silver Dardevles, brought them home in the trunk of the rattling Corsica, and, without a word, stretched them out on the grass of the front yard, their iridescent bodies glistening, their fins moving slightly, as if still circling the depths. Now those memories are waterproof as thick green waders. After each cast, the boy lets the lure float on the calm surface a few seconds, then dances it left and right with a quick motion of his pole—he's a conductor, swinging his baton, the orchestra following with a quick crescendo of notes. The dance stops abruptly. The lure's two black eyeballs are caught in surprise as a huge bass closes the night sky on it. He sets the hook deep, as if he's leaning all the way back to his childhood. The largemouth bass leaps high over the water, sends up a crown-shaped splash, the tiny tidal waves carrying to the far shore. Then something snaps. He stares in disbelief: The line he always thought could reel in the moon dangles in front of him, broken, fragile as a spider web threaded between two clotheslines. Back in the cabin, he sulks, whispers to the big picture window, blind with the evening's darkness: Grandpa's lure, lost. Lost. It's OK, we tell him, but his mother and father's words don't help. The next morning, walking by himself through skin-scratching weeds, he whispers the words again to the snapped cattails and hollowed trees, to the frogs that pull the swamp over their heads, to the bird's nest, its powder-blue eggshells shattered on hard ground. Two weeks later, we return to the cabin for the weekend. Standing on the splintered dock, our son notices something has floated to the surface of the lake. Its wide eyes rise between the green clouds of the lily pads a few feet from shore. He rushes into the water, lifts it high, gazes at the plug-shaped red and yellow lure rotating in the sun: The ripples of afternoon air seem to move out from it and all the way around the world. Then he finds the end of the short length of transparent line, squeezes it tightly in his palm as though he'll never let it go, as though he can feel someone pulling gently, but insistently, on the other end. MM Bill Meissner is director of creative writing at St. Cloud State University.

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