“I watched him,”
he said, surrounded by walls and dry,
but shivering from wet despair,
never unremembered.
“I couldn’t speak or move, as he splashed furiously towards me,
moving ceaselessly away. I knew I couldn’t swim well enough.
I watched him.”
And I nodded, suddenly cloaked in damp.
For this was a time of drownings,
generations pulled out to sea, further and further from shore with each birth,
less and less with strength to make it ashore.
Bowing, grasping at the water’s edge,
each wave tugging at sodden pant legs,
I still hear splashing behind me, afraid to look.
Strength to save myself, perhaps, but would I drown to save another?
