Death by Water

A mother breaks a hole in a bathroom window
Pushes her child through to the other side

Not knowing what’s there or what waits for her.
Surely it’s just an act of hysteria, something from

The movies, these things don’t really happen
To us, but - go through anyway, just in case

I’ll be round in a minute, water can’t keep on
Rising like an unlimited cake, can it, but hurry

Just in case it can, and this is real and I am about
To drown. Hurry now and go as high as you can

Climb to the top of the mountain, to a place that
You’ve never even seen, and maybe, just maybe

We’ll meet there. But the child’s gone now, running
Away from the sound of water, and there’s not even

Time to catch that last breath, before it’s gone. The
Mother seized by a world beyond any world she ever

Even guessed at, far from the hotel, the towels, the pool,
Out into the deep, the blue, the beyond accounting,

To a land immune from the dreams we float in
A place so quiet and still it feels like nowhere on earth.


040105