You drowned as a child

you drowned as a child

gone in my momentary absence

yet i see your end in my mind

such perfect blue that day, water so safe

saturated clean, chlorinated with Science

i suspect the surface rippled

your feeble attempts a

bob atop your end, a corked bottle

as if you were made of some other substance

than what sprang from my most earnest effort

i see your head, i see your face

breaching that blurry plane

blowing, inhaling

frantic even to the indifferent silence

the unseeable, inattentive air overhead

that precious breath you were, by degrees

denied

i count the times i think you fought

the sodden sink set in your feet

in your eyes i see fear

the uncertainty, shock, surprise -

life was fair, full of love and friendship,

family, the strength of a father -

and then all these abruptly left you

to struggle alone against a foe

you did not know

there at the end

i fear most that panic and dread dissipated

leaving only a dull befuddlement

a new wound of belated insight

to find that life was cruel

from this i had protected you

hid it from your curious gaze

but you discovered it on your own

as do we all.