We once watched a crowd
\npull a drowned child from the lake.
\nBlue lipped and dressed in water\u2019s long green silk
\nshe lay for dead.<\/p>\n
Then kneeling on the earth,
\na heroine, her red head bowed,
\nher wartime cotton frock soaked,
\nmy mother gave a stranger\u2019s child her breath.
\nThe crowd stood silent,
\ndrawn by the dread of it.<\/p>\n
The child breathed, bleating
\nand rosy in my mother\u2019s hands.
\nMy father took her home to a poor house
\nand watched her thrashed for almost drowning.<\/p>\n
Was I there?
\nOr is that troubled surface something else
\nshadowy under the dipped fingers of willows
\nwhere satiny mud blooms in cloudiness
\nafter the treading, heavy webs of swans
\nas their wings beat and whistle on the air?<\/p>\n
All lost things lie under closing water
\nin that lake with the poor man\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n