The Boy in the Water

Mary C. O'Malley

 

 

 

My eyes bear down on the image of him, face up,

sinking, caught in a webbed tangle of lotus roots.

Straddling the earth, I reach down and pull. And

with one hand, raise your body. With the other, I

raise the morning sun. Once again I save you from

your liquid fascination, once again I save a discordant

world from night. I have failed to keep them safe. The

sun, refuses to rise to a wayward earth entrapped

by humans. In my womb he must have been damaged

or was it the fall off the playground slide. You alone

are my different child. You hear the language of brilliant

stars, walk out of our thorned house spellbound, enchanted

by their light. They make you believe their promise of

flight. I think you see them mirrored in the pond, reach down

to grab their floating image. At 4:00 am I jerk awake,

terrorized by your absence. I always know where he is.

I follow his footprints down to the neighbor's pond. There

I perform my twin edged duties of saving son and earth.

 

 

Copyright 2007 by the Tipton Poetry Journal.

All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual poet and may not be used without their permission.

 

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